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Our research is designed to help better understand the evolving dynamics of our region and support transformative social change. We serve as both a practical resource and a trusted partner for all who focus on Asia and the Pacific.
Our commitments to innovative disciplinary expertise, deep engagement, and addressing current and future policy challenges underpin all our research at the College.
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Our Schools
The College of Asia and the Pacific is comprised of four teaching and research schools.
ANU Regional Institutes
The ANU Regional Institutes are hubs for interdisciplinary research and innovative collaboration. They are support networks for both scholars and students working and studying across the Asia-Pacific region.
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Access world-class experts who will inspire your research in social and cultural anthropology. Our diverse faculty maintains a program focus on theoretically informed, ethnographic fieldwork in the Asia-Pacific region.
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Engage with the cultural complexity and environmental diversity of the Asia Pacific region with archaeology and natural history. Your research will develop your understanding of the origins and trajectories of cultural and environmental change through time.
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Our research expertise and reputation in Asia-Pacific security spans across the vital strategic relations between the United States, China, India and Japan; the four regional flashpoints including the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, and the East and South China Seas; global strategic challenges including nuclear proliferation and maritime security; transnational security challenges and cooperation; and the nexus between economic and security issues. Our research in these areas informs our understanding of key strategic challenges and defence priorities in the Asia-Pacific region, and Australia’s place in the region.
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Examine the rich and complex history of Asia, and its growing global importance, through a broad range of disciplines and geographical expertise, giving you the most comprehensive range of research options on Asia in Australia, and arguably, the world.
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Our researchers have expertise on the political and social dynamics of all major states in Asia and the Pacific, including China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Papua New Guinea. Our scholarship includes award-winning contributions in the areas of electoral systems, political party development, clientelism, populism, religious and environmental politics, women’s leadership, political economy, corruption, regime change, and conflict and conflict resolution.
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Deal with the key global trends of our time, with a focus on economic development in China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and other Asia Pacific economies.
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Investigate a wide range of environmental and resource management issues that affect the Asia and Pacific region, including climate change adaptation and mitigation, natural hazards and disasters, the social and environmental impacts of development and more.
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The geostrategic environment in the Asia-Pacific has grown increasingly more complex. New organisations, with regional and sub-regional groupings are becoming more active and external players such as China and Indonesia are much more visible in regional affairs. Our research on geopolitics and regionalism addresses the drivers of, and trends in, regional politics and diplomacy covering themes such as soft power and public diplomacy, political economy, Pacific diplomacy, and non-state actor diplomacy. Researchers also investigate some of the most pressing development issues in Pacific Island countries including relationships between state structures and capabilities, society and societal transformations, and governance in the Pacific.
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Your research will connect insights on the transformations of gender and sexuality in Asia and the Pacific from a range of disciplines including anthropology, history, language, literature and media studies.
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Examine deep processes of change in Asian and Pacific societies, covering ancient civilisations, the turbulent encounter of these societies with the West and the promises and threats of the recent past.
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In recent years, human security problems and issues have gained increasing attention on global and regional security agendas as well as in Australia’s foreign policy. The research profile of our academics cuts across global and regional affairs in the areas of urbanisation, global migration and forced displacement, child rights and protection, gender-based and domestic violence, women’s economic empowerment, health security, and artificial intelligence.
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Explore nuclear disarmament, the role of global institutions or world peace. We offer you a keen insight into the realm of global politics with a unique focus on the Asia Pacific region.
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Draw on pragmatic and policy-oriented solutions to complex issues. Investigate a wide variety of topics related to justice, security, and more.
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With one of the largest concentrations of linguists anywhere in the world, and over 50 years of experience documenting little-known languages, we have the capacity to support your research on more than 2,000 languages of the Asia and Pacific region.
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Our program aims to develop internationally recognised security specialists with outstanding research skills. Choose from 19 multidisciplinary fields ranging across the security of regions and states, cyberspace, terrorism, potential futures and the challenges faced by policymakers.
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Pacific Studies is an interdisciplinary field focusing on the islands of Oceania and the Pacific diaspora. Our scholars explore important historical and contemporary issues, and critically examine the ways in which the region has been framed, constructed and represented.
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Engage in cutting edge research on Asia and Pacific politics with world-leading experts and understand the region’s political diversity — from durable one-party regimes such as China, to the sprawling democracies of India and Indonesia, or the tiny microstates of the Pacific.
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Develop your expertise in political science, public administration, economics, geography, anthropology or area studies, and become a leading practitioner who has real impact in today’s complex world of policy challenges.
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Undertake regulatory research by promoting the interests of social justice, fairness, human rights or economically sustainable development, grounded in a number of fields including anthropology, criminology, environmental studies, gender studies, law, psychology and more.
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Develop research that provides insight, imagination and judgement on understanding the history of conflict, the complexity of the global strategic environment, Australia’s place in it, and the utility and application of armed force in international affairs.
Research and Publications
Our research focuses on understanding the evolving dynamics of our region and supporting transformative social change. We serve as both a practical resource and a trusted partner for all who focus on Asia and the Pacific.
paradigm_shift: perfection
Dive into diverse projects of perfection that shape lives in Asia and the Pacific.
Nobody’s perfect, and yet... Perfection makes us dream and dare; it nudges us along our daily duties; it wakes us up in the middle of the night. Perfection can promise us fantastic rewards, while it also can also imprison us in failure. Perfection, as a concept, sits uneasily between worlds of relative value and transcendent ideals. It should be obvious that what is perfect for one person might be disturbing – and scandalously imperfect – for another.
Nobody’s perfect, and yet by understanding how people seek perfection in many different ways, we gain insight into the multicultural world within and beyond Australia’s borders.
Humanities Research for Health in Asia Network (HRHA)
We welcome affiliations with researchers who are engaged in humanities or social science-based projects. The research approach of scholars engaged in this network includes a focus on different kinds of ‘traditional’ medicine, whether it is Ayurvedic, Tibetan, Chinese, Mongolian or Japanese. We are interested in researchers that are connecting with holistic research approaches, based on underlying philosophies that have long been established within Asia, but projects that are engaging with contemporary issues of health, wellbeing and environmental consequences in this age of the Anthropocene.
Nuclear Asia
For the past decade, the world has looked to the Asia Pacific as the new centre of dynamism in the global economy. This collection shows this optimistic view of the region needs to be tempered with sustained attention to more sobering trends associated with increasingly destructive rivalries in Asia and the Pacific.
Securing our Energy
The politics and practicalities of securing enough energy to sustain our globe is a reality we must confront.
As the world's population increases to more than nine billion people by 2040, primary energy demand is expected to be almost 30 per cent higher than it is today.
With these kinds of projections in mind, expertise and new ideas are now needed more than ever so we can find the solutions for a more secure, clean, reliable and affordable energy future for us all.
Securing our Energy is a collection of expert essays on the challenges and opportunities of energy security, energy access and climate change.
People Movement
The politics of people movement is a defining feature of the 21st century, with profound ramifications for every country in the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia.
This collection examines many of the region’s most troubling situations of people on the move while giving considered attention to the opportunities for better national and regional responses.