Nordic Institute of Asian Studies

• 1. Introduction

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  The Nordic Institute of Asian Studies was known in Danish as Nordisk Institut for Asien Studier and abbreviated NIAS. It shut its doors for good on the 31st of December 2023. Before that, it functioned as a research body and information hub focused on Asian studies, tied to the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Its closing leaves open questions. Who built it, whom did it serve across the Nordic region, and what remains of its work now that the institute itself is gone?

• 2. A Nordic Mandate

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  In 1968, the Nordic Council of Ministers established NIAS as a shared focal point for Asia research across the Nordic countries. Copenhagen was chosen as its base. From there its reach extended across five countries: Denmark, including Greenland and the Faroe Islands, plus Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.

  That five-nation mandate defined NIAS from its founding, well before the university itself reorganized how the institute was governed.

• 3. Independence Within The University

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  On the 1st of January 2005, NIAS became an independent academic institute under Danish University Law. It operated as a centre inside the University of Copenhagen's Department of Political Science, which carried administrative and legal responsibility for it. NIAS kept a measure of independence anyway, setting its own priorities for strategy and research instead of deferring to the department in those areas.

  Modern and contemporary Asia anchored the institute's research agenda inside this new structure, with particular weight given to politics, economics, anthropology and development studies. That combination of governance, part of a university department and part self-governing, defined how NIAS operated until its final year.

• 4. The Library And The Press

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  NIAS Library and Information Centre, known as NIAS LINC, served the institute's own community as a dedicated library. It had operated as a fully digital library since 2014.

  NIAS Press, the institute's publishing arm, leaned toward social science and historical work centered on modern Southeast Asia and East Asia. Its scope still reached beyond that core. Writers from many different countries appeared on its list, and every title came out only in English. Asia in Focus, a peer-reviewed journal from NIAS, appeared online twice a year, giving the institute's research another outlet beyond books. NUS Press now carries NIAS Press's full catalogue to readers everywhere. That partnership extends the reach of decades of publishing on Southeast Asian and East Asian societies beyond the institute's own lifespan.