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With our fellowship programme, we are going to invite the fi rst group of candidates from all over the world to join one of many Institute’s thematic clusters of their alternative. IIAS is starting the year with a number of new initiatives deliberate underneath the aegis of our three new thematic clusters – Asian Cities, Politics of Culture and Heritage, and Asian Intra and Global Connectivities – while we’ll proceed to reinforce the Institute’s capacities to fulfill the quite a few challenges I highlighted in my earlier note. This unique occasion introduced members of tutorial communities along with cultural practitioners from Asia and Europe to openly focus on the philosophy and politics of cultural heritage with a view to proposing new approaches and insurance policies. Among the concepts mentioned by the contributors from 17 nationalities ranging from Pakistan to Denmark, was that of establishing a high stage training platform that might allow scholars and practitioners to develop “situational” methodologies in cultural heritage. We anticipate to conduct comparable high-profi le coaching classes for promising young scholars annually on a major topic relevant to Asia and Europe.

The training initiative will likely be developed in collaboration with Leiden University’s Asian Modernity and Tradition Profi le. With an agenda espousing a few of the main contemporary points aff ecting Asia, IIAS hopes to strike a balance between matters and pursuits of rapid social relevance and people calling for refl ections and actions anchored in the lengthy mental tradition of exchange between Europe and Asia. The website will grow in symbiosis with the present Newsletter in order to boost the latter’s function as the primary digital and printed hyperlink between “Asianists” around the world. In the meantime, we urge you to keep promoting the fee-free IIAS Newsletter among circles of associates and colleagues both in its electronic and its printed format. This latter initiative refl ects IIAS’s new interest within the constitution of strategic partnerships with our Asian pals. Not surprisingly, they need to increasingly refl ect the brand new areas of interest chosen by IIAS whereas the periodical will proceed to be dwelling to contributions and information on a wide range of matters.

This roundtable, part of our urban cluster, will aim at recommending insurance policies while inaugurating what we see as an everyday dialogue between local officials and consultants together with social science students and their establishments. The intention of those dialogues framed in a comparative mannequin is to reinforce mutual understanding and the appreciation of the complicated imaginary, political and social constructions nonetheless current in ex-colonizing and ex-colonized societies. The imaginative and prescient and tenacity of my colleagues, earlier and present, made sure that ICAS not only succeeded as the fi rst Asia-based world community on Asian studies, however that it is now seen as a associate to the long-established model set by AAS. In all these activities, IIAS’s vision remains clear and echoes the points outlined in my fi rst word: IIAS wants to play a role not only as a clearing home between Europe and Asia, but additionally between the established fi elds of humanities and social sciences and the fast transforming societies of Asia.

In October, IIAS and the Nanyang Technology University in Singapore will co-organize a roundtable addressing the longstanding interactions current between the different scientific traditions of the Eurasian continent, from Europe to East Asia, including traditions from South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean world. The idea of a summer college took form following the very profitable roundtable on cultural heritage organized by IIAS and the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF) in Amsterdam last September. 2011 will also see IIAS organize a collection of thrilling conferences following the same interactive format as that of the Amsterdam roundtable. I’ll end my word with some phrases on the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), as a result of the current Newsletter will seem in conjunction with the upcoming AAS-ICAS Convention happening in Hawaii at the tip of March. We sit up for continuing that can assist you in your work on/in Asia. In July, we will work with the Indonesian federal and native authorities and the Pacifi c Rim Council on Urban Development to address the crucial subject of rising sea water levels and the affect on the social fabric of Indonesia’s coastal cities. As in the past, the Newsletter will continue to deal with specifi c subjects and highlights.