Annual Reports

MESSAGE FROM CHAIR OF MANAGEMENT BOARD
Prof Chong Chi Tat

The year 2012 for ARI ended on an introspective note with a major institutional review by an External Review Committee chaired by Professor Tommy Koh and with Professors Takashi Shiraishi, Srirupa Roy and Ho Eng Seng as members. The Committee commended the impressive achievements of ARI over the last six years and made somere commendations which will be implemented during the coming year to facilitate its “moving up to the next level to provide conceptual innovation and thought leadership in a number of fields at the global level”.

The main engine of research work in ARI remained very much driven by the distinguished Research Leaders and their respective team members in the seven specific research clusters of Asian Migration, Asian Urbanisms, Changing Family in Asia, Cultural Studies in Asia, Religion and Globalisation in Asian Contexts, Science, Technology, and Society, as well as the Metacluster: Historical Sociology of Asian Connections. In 2012, the Institute received a total of 450 applications to join these clusters as short and medium term visiting researchers; this represented a sharp jump from the 180 applications registered for 2008…