China.asiatelegraph.net

The development plan of the Institute looks in three principal directions for the medium/long term:

1. Expanding geographic and cultural areas for comparative studies: Areas such as East Asia (including China), Southeast Asia, and Oceania are current study targets. Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East will be studied in the future.

2. Deepening research levels: Past research emphasized narratives in social organization. We are now emphasizing other aspects of cultural research, particularly cultural classifications and cultural logics, and the interfaces between culture and cognition (such as unconscious levels of cognition and sentiment).

3. Integrating historical and social contexts of socio-cultural development: Topics of research include the development of capitalism (including globalization issues), modern nationalism, and Christianization.

RESEARCH FELLOWS & RESEARCH GROUPS

There are currently 29 full-time research fellows at the Institute. Research fellows are free to develop independent projects in their areas of specialization. The original three research sections were dissolved in 2002 in compliance with Academia Sinica's policies. This action was intended to improve individual research initiatives and to open up new arenas of collaborative group research. Thus, in addition to individual research projects, the Institute also promotes integrated group projects in cooperation with other institutes in Academia Sinica as well as with various colleges and universities. We hope to use teamwork to explore forward-looking research topics and perform far-reaching in-depth research.