About Monash Asia Institute
The Monash Asia Institute ( MAI ) is a Monash centre representing the Asian research and teaching expertise in all ten faculties on all Monash campuses located in Australia and abroad. The MAI is a multi-disciplinary research, teaching and publishing centre for more than 200 Monash staff. Founded in 1988 as the Institute for Contemporary Asian Studies, it was reconstituted as the MAI in 1992 to bring together a wide range of Asia-related activities in the University and develop collaborative links with like-minded institutions in Australia, Asia, the USA and Europe. The MAI consists of six research centres:
- Asia Pacific Health and Nutrition Centre
- China Research Centre
- Centre for Malaysian Studies
- Centre of Southeast Asian Studies
- Japanese Studies Centre
- National Centre for South Asian Studies
Each centre undertakes a range of specialist activities, including the supervision of Masters and Ph.D students, seminars, conferences, publications and research projects.
The MAI co-sponsors activities with Asian language departments at Monash to promote the teaching of Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean languages and culture. In addition, MAI has a close relationship with the Asian Studies Research Library (ASRL) at Monash University.
The MAI has a number of special projects such as the Regional Security Program, Kashgar Project, Sukunan Programme which report to the Director, MAI. The MAI has a press with over 200 titles, a database of expertise, rights to distribute specialist Asian videos, and collaborative research projects which bring together all the centres of the MAI with Monash and outside partners.