APW Home Page
APW 2004 Home Page
Campus Map
The National Institute for Asia and the Pacific (NIAP), Australian National University, will be hosting an inaugural Asia-Pacific summer school from 2-6 February 2004. The school's main purpose is to provide opportunities for honours and post-graduate students, working on Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea and the South Pacific, to meet and interact with established academics in an informal and supportive environment. It will also enable networking among area specialists, and inform the public about research activities on Asia-Pacific at the ANU and Australian universities generally.
For Thailand, NIAP, in association with the National Thai Studies Centre, will be hosting a multi-disciplinary conference/workshop on "Thailand – Current Research Perspectives". The purpose is to promote postgraduate research on Thailand by bringing together current and intending postgraduate students and established scholars of Thailand from both Australia and overseas. An outstanding Thai academic of international standing will be invited from Thailand to present a Keynote address.
Honours level students interested in undertaking postgraduate research on Thailand; PhD and MA students just beginning their studies; postgraduate students who have returned from fieldwork in Thailand and are writing their dissertations; as well as academics from all disciplines who are involved in research on and about Thailand are all invited to attend. Researchers at all levels will have opportunities for intensive contact with academic specialists in their field.
The format of the Summer School/Conference will include a mix of formal presentations and workshops. Morning sessions will take the form of a conference, with presentations by academics from the Australian National University and other universities, and post-graduates at an advanced stage of their research.
Afternoons will be in the form of workshops focusing on a range of practical research-oriented topics. In the workshops, senior academics will discuss: Thai studies research methodologies; the practicalities of conducting fieldwork in Thailand; and the acquisition of Thai language skills. Researchers will also be introduced to the extensive English and Thai language library resources at the ANU and National Library of Australia. During the course of the Summer School participating students will be assigned a writing task related to their intended or current research and receive feedback
Honours level and postgraduate students enrolled in a course of study at an Australian or New Zealand university are eligible to apply for scholarships to participate in the Summer School/Conference. These scholarships will partially offset travel and accommodation costs. Campus accommodation will be available at that time, and organisers will be able to assist with bookings. Please note that financial assistance will only be available to those students attending for the full five days.
Expressions of interest should be sent to the National Thai Studies Centre, Faculty of Asian Studies (ntsc@anu.edu.au) headed "Summer School". Prospective students should send a letter (2 pages maximum) that contains the following information:
Applications should be submitted by end of November. (These may be preliminary in nature, if research depends on academic results.) Successful applicants will be advised around 15 December.
While no funding is available for non-Australian researchers, overseas postgraduate students are welcome to attend the Summer School to present a paper on their research project and/or to audit the afternoon workshops. Overseas students wishing to attend the Summer School should provide the same information as that being requested from Australian students.
Australian and overseas academics are invited to register with the National Thai Studies Centre to present papers on their current research during the planned morning conference sessions and to be involved in the afternoon student workshops and providing advice and guidance to students. Academics who cannot spend the entire five days of the Summer School/Conference are encouraged to attend on the first two or three days of the week (2, 3 and 4 February), so that a formal conference program can be planned for the mornings of these three days.
There are no registration fees to participate in the conference. However, the following details should be forwarded to the organizers:
