Grants

Since its inception until 2015, and with support from the Toyota Foundation and the Japan Foundation, SEASREP awarded grants to Southeast Asian applicants for MA/PhD study in Southeast Asia, language training, research collaboration, and a traveling classroom for undergraduate students. The grants program ended in 2015 as greater focus has been placed on knowledge dissemination through capacity-building, collaborative research, participation in conferences, and publications.

The grants programs included:

1. Language training in a Southeast Asian language;
2. MA/PhD study in another Southeast Asian university;
3. Visiting professors program among universities in the region; and
4. Regional collaboration on a comparative or regional theme in the form of researches or conferences.

The Japan Foundation funded the first three programs, while the Toyota Foundation funded the fourth. The two foundations constituted the Tokyo Joint Secretariat for SEASREP. To provide the institutional infrastructure for the Council’s exchange program, the Council initiated a formal agreement among eight universities in the region: the Universities of Malaya, Indonesia, Gadjah Mada, Philippines, Thammasat, Chulalongkorn, National University of Malaysia, and Ateneo de Manila University.

From 1995–2015, SEASREP awarded a total of 557 grants to scholars and institutions in the region, with the comparative and collaborative grants having the highest number of recipients (Figure 1).