Collaboratory

ARI–Luce Southeast Asian Studies Collaboratory Next Generation Scholars (3)

The Collaboratory at the Asia Research Institute (ARI) is a flexible, integrative platform for incubating early-stage projects and partnerships in the study of Asia. It complements ARI’s established research clusters by providing a developmental space for intellectual exploration while remaining closely aligned with the Institute’s mission to advance interdisciplinary, relevant, and globally connected scholarship.

At its core, the Collaboratory serves as an entry-point for new initiatives, offering a structured yet open mechanism through which emerging research agendas, exploratory partnerships and prospective institutional engagements can be introduced, tested, and refined.  In doing so, it creates a pathway for ideas at the earliest stages to gain traction within ARI’s broader intellectual ecosystem and to contribute to the shaping of new research directions.
The Collaboratory supports the development of pilot projects and scholarly networks that engage new themes, methodologies, and regional or transregional perspectives.  It operates through a combination of targeted workshops, short-term residencies, pilot funding opportunities, and networking forums designed to facilitate exchange, foster connections, and build momentum around emerging ideas. 
 
It enables scholars and partners at NUS, across Singapore, Asia, and the wider world to engage ARI at an early stage of conceptual development, with the potential for these initiatives to evolve into more formalized activities

ARI–Luce Southeast Asian Studies Collaboratory: Next Generation Scholars I Maitrii Aung-Thwin and Aishah Alhadad

The ARI–Luce Southeast Asian Studies Collaboratory is an intensive residential program designed to support early-career scholars working on Southeast Asia. Supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Collaboratory brings together emerging scholars, senior academics, and practitioners to strengthen research writing, professional development, and transregional networks in Southeast Asian Studies.

Building on ARI’s more than two decades of leadership in graduate and early-career training—most notably through the Asian Graduate Student Fellowship and the Singapore Graduate Forum—the Collaboratory responds to a critical developmental gap in the immediate post-PhD years. It provides protected writing time, structured mentorship, and sustained regional and international engagement at a formative stage of scholarly careers.

Global Indo-Pacific: Connecting Histories and Futures I James Sidaway and Tim Winter

The Global Indo-Pacific: Connecting Histories and Futures collaboratory, led by James Sidaway and Tim Winter, builds on a new grant from the Max Weber Foundation supporting a three-year, multi-institutional collaboration of the same name. Bringing together leading research institutes across Tokyo, London, Paris, Washington, Delhi, and Berlin in partnership with ARI, the project runs from mid-2025 to mid-2027 with funding of just under €300,000. The Collaboratory supported the planning and development of a larger follow-on application — a Max Weber Foundation Transregional Research Group bid of around €2.5 million — which was submitted in February 2026. The outcome of this application is due in early May. Part of the funding provided by NUS supported the travel of participants from Germany for a conference and grant prep workshop that was held in early 2026. 

Digital Platforms and Remaking of Urban Spaces in Asia I Naomi Hanakata

The Digital Asia collaboratory at NUS’s Asia Research Institute (ARI) investigates how digital platforms are reshaping urban space, governance, and citizenship across Asia. Bringing together an international team of scholars, the collaboratory examines the material and spatial implications of platform infrastructures—from data centers and distribution networks to everyday practices of platform use. By focusing on Asia’s diverse contexts, it highlights how global digital transformations intersect with local conditions, producing new territorial relations, inequalities, and opportunities. The collaboratory advances critical and comparative debates on digitization and the challenges and opportunities for the ‘physical city’ in this process. Building on its growing international network, the team convened a double session at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and is currently developing a special issue publication based on this work

Southeast Asia Civic Technology for Climate Action I Chaewon Ahn and Jeff Hou

The Southeast Asia Civic Technology for Climate Action collaboratory focused on civic technology applications in Southeast Asian cities to understand how globally shared technology standards of DIY sensors, open-source software, and hacker cultures can engage with diverse forms of political realities in Southeast Asian cities. The collaboratory carried out several activities to build a regional research network that maps, analyzes, and strengthens civic technology initiatives for climate action across Southeast Asia.