Institut für Asienkunde, Hamburg
Introducing the new Alliance partner
Recently, in late 1998, the Institut für Asienkunde in Hamburg, Germany, joined the Strategic Alliance that had been forged the year before by the IIAS and the NIAS. Though the Institute has been an authority on Asian Studies for years now, a short overview of its activities follows below.
The Institute of Asian Affairs (IfA) was founded in 1956 on initiative of the German Parliament and the German Foreign Office. The decision to locate the Institute in Hamburg was influenced by the fact that Hamburg University has very well equipped institutions of traditional Asian Studies and, in addition to this, the City of Hamburg has a multitude of overseas connections especially with Asia, which are organized through the East Asia Business Association. The Institute is an independent, nonprofit organization, exempted from corporate tax and has its own charter according to civil law. The Institute is managed by a director who is ex officio member of the board of directors. A board of supervisors looks after the overall activities. In both boards there are scholars, parlementarians, journalists, members from trade and industry, members from the administration of the city states of Hamburg and Bremen, and last not least representatives of the Foreign Office in Bonn.
Finance
The Institute of Asian Affairs co-operates closely with the German Overseas Institute from where it receives its budgetary support. It is financed jointly by the Foreign Office in Bonn and by the Economics Ministry of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. In addition, it enjoys a considerable income from the sale of its own publications as well as from projects financed through research support organizations.
Purpose
The Institute has been assigned the task of studying the political, economic, and social developments in the Asian countries. Its work should concentrate on contemporary affairs only and should be of practical relevance not only the scholarly community but also to people in the media, in political parties, in the business community, and in the administration.
Main Activities
The Institute of Asian Affairs concentrates among others on the following activities: Current review and analysis of
Lectures and Conferences
The staff members of the Institute give lectures to do with their research activities to representatives of the business community, interest groups, institutions of political education, university institutes, and so on. These lectures serve the purpose of disseminating the knowledge acquired in the daily work at the Institute. In addition, they fulfil the purpose of developing new research topics in discussions with representatives from the business community, politicians, and academics. These activities are supplemented by lectures given regularly by research staff members of the Institute at Hamburg University and other universities, as well as interviews relating to important political and economic developments to the various media. Moreover, since 1970 the Institute, in co-operation with other institutions, has fairly regularly once a year organized conferences for larger audiences concerning important developments. Lectures that are held during such conferences are normally published in book form.
National and International Co-operation
The Institute co-operates closely with those institutes belonging to the Foundation German Overseas Institute as well as with the different departments of Hamburg University. There is an especially close co-operation with the German Association for Asian Studies and the Working Group on Contemporary Research and Documentation on South and East Asia. Besides these, the Foundation for Science and Politics at Ebenhausen, the Federal Institute for Eastern European and International Studies in Cologne, and the German Political Foundations deserve a special mention. Because of the necessity for a continuous exchange of information, ideas, and research materials, the Institute of Asian Affairs has a large number of working relations as far as research on Asia is concerned with research institutes and libraries in Asia, in Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, the United States, and Australia.
Library and Archive
The library of the Institute of Asian Affairs comprises about 60,000 bibliographical units. The annual growth is about 2,000 titles, of which about 30% are in Asian languages. The library subscribes to about 400 periodicals, out of which 100 are in East Asian languages. About 40% of the library holdings are on China, 20% on Japan. The Institute is the only reference library in Germany for quite a number of materials. On behalf of the German Research Association, the Institute has been assigned the task of collecting materials published in Asian countries that are normally not available in the booktrade.
Publications
The institute publishes
Institut für Asienkunde (Institute of Asian Affairs) Rothenbaumchaussee 32
D-20148 Hamburg
Germany
Tel.: +49-40-44 3001
Fax: +49-40-410 7945
E-mail: ifahh@uni-hamburg.de
http://www.rrz.uni-hamburg.de/ifa