Our History
The year was 1965. The first batch of US ground troops had landed in Vietnam to fight communist insurgents in what was to be a protracted war. In Indonesia, President Sukarno was deposed following a military coup and replaced by General Suharto and the New Order regime. Meanwhile Indonesia’s Konfrontasi against Malaysia waged on. Amidst these uncertainties, Singapore was evicted from Malaysia and a young nation was born.
ISEAS was the brainchild of then Deputy Prime Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee. He realised that a small and vulnerable state had to better understand its neighbours for survival and observed that we “knew more about Melbourne than Medan”.
After personally visiting research centres around the world, Dr Goh proposed to Cabinet in October 1966 to establish a research institute that could carry out strategically driven research with academic rigour. He had intended for ISEAS to conduct multi-disciplinary research on our biggest neighbour, Indonesia, including its geography, ethnography, politics, economics and culture. This research institute, Dr Goh believed, needed to possess a “delicacy of perceptions” to go beyond the superficial and apparent to decipher underlying trends and structures.
Dr Goh’s original proposal was expanded the following year when the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was formed in 1967. ISEAS’s shift from an Indonesian to a Southeast Asian focus acknowledged the importance of studying the region holistically and how different national societies interacted with each other.
On 7 June 1968 Parliament passed the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Act. It was a significant milestone because the establishment of ISEAS as an autonomous institute bucked the trend of western research centres studying Southeast Asia from afar. For the first time, the region had a research centre with scholars dedicated to study the region.
ISEAS was renamed ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in August 2015 in honour of Singapore’s First President, Mr Yusof Ishak.
Our Mission
ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS) 尤索夫伊萨东南亚研究院, formerly Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, was established as an autonomous organisation by an Act of Parliament in 1968.
Its primary objectives are:
- To be a leading research centre dedicated to the study of socio-political, security, and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic and economic environment.
- To stimulate research and debate within scholarly circles, enhance public awareness of the region, and facilitate the search for viable solutions to the varied problems confronting the region.
- To nurture a community of scholars interested in the region and to engage in research on the multi-faceted dimensions and issues of stability and security, economic development, and political, social and cultural change.
The Institute conducts a range of research programmes; holds conferences, workshops, lectures and seminars; publishes briefs, research journals and books; and provides a range of research support facilities, including a large library collection.