Mapping academic ties between Central Europe and Southeast Asia reveals growing, though uneven, links across the region.
Key takeaways:
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Since 1989, research interest in Southeast Asia has expanded from philology and languages, religious studies, and ethnography to virtually all other academic disciplines. Despite growing interest in the region, there is still no dedicated institute for Southeast Asian Studies at any Central European university.
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EU accession in 2004 gave Central European universities access to EU research and exchange programs (Horizon Europe and Erasmus), enabling them to expand their cooperation with Southeast Asian universities. The region’s economic and technological dynamism has led over the past decade to an expansion of institutional relations. Poland has been the most active in this regard, while Slovakia is lagging.
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Alongside the EU programs, the Visegrád Four (V4) countries have established national research and exchange programs that enable their academic and research institutions to cooperate with Southeast Asian partners, including in research and mobility. However, these programs have a global, not Southeast Asia–specific, focus.
Introduction
The relationships between universities in Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia and universities in Southeast Asia have not yet been systematically recorded in academic research. For this reason, the V4-ASEAN Academic Engagement Tracker was developed as part of the EUSEAR project. It aims to spur university research and, more broadly, scientific relations between Central Europe and Southeast Asia. The following briefly outlines key findings, presents the methodology, and discusses data quality.
The Tracker examines the relationships of major public and private universities in Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia with universities in the eleven Southeast Asian countries. Universities of applied sciences and non-university research institutions, such as the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences or CEIAS, are not yet included, even though some of these institutions conduct very active research on Southeast Asia—CEIAS has a special Southeast Asia program—and in some cases have also concluded partnership agreements.
Research on Southeast Asia has a long tradition in Czechia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia. Under communism, Oriental Studies predominated, with a focus on philology and language, religion, and ethnography. University partnerships existed in particular with scientific institutions in the communist brother states Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. After 1989, other disciplines such as politics, economics, the natural sciences, and technology increasingly came to the fore. The V4 states’ accession to the European Union in 2004 opened up new possibilities, as they could now participate in well-funded European research and exchange programs, which also expanded partnerships beyond Europe.
Regarding research on Southeast Asia, the tracker findings show pronounced differences among the Visegrád states. Research is most strongly institutionalized in Poland and Czechia. However, there is no dedicated institute for Southeast Asian Studies in any Central and Eastern European country, nor does any German or Austrian university have one. Rather, Southeast Asia falls within the research portfolios of various faculties and departments, primarily Asian Studies but also Political Science, International Relations and Economics. Partnerships with Southeast Asian universities are of course not limited to Southeast Asian Studies; rather, they span all disciplines. A case in point is the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra’s partnerships with like-minded universities in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Interest in academic cooperation with Southeast Asia has risen across Central Europe in recent years, driven by Southeast Asia’s rapid economic and technological development. This explains the relatively high number of university partnerships, except in Slovakia. For Poland, the V4-ASEAN Academic Engagement Tracker lists 24 universities with a total of 130 partnerships with Southeast Asian universities; for Czechia, 17 universities with 86 partnerships. Hungary has 16 universities with 76 partnerships, and Slovakia has 8 universities with 22 partnerships. Many partnership agreements have been concluded in the last ten years.
However, it is not only Central European universities that are seeking international partners; Southeast Asian governments and universities are also increasingly pushing internationalization of higher education. Since, with a few exceptions in Singapore and Malaysia, Southeast Asian universities do not rank at the very top of international rankings, it is easier for them to find similarly ranked partners in smaller Central European countries. Such peer-to-peer cooperation also makes good sense. It should be noted, however, that collaboration is currently in most cases not very deep. Joint research projects do exist, but Central and Eastern European and Southeast Asian universities are usually among several partners in larger Horizon Europe projects. The most tangible results of partnerships are in the exchange of researchers and students, though in most cases the numbers in both directions are only a few people per year.
Strengthening university cooperation between Central Europe and Southeast Asia is valuable in its own right. In addition, expanding academic and institutional partnerships would contribute to meaningfully deepening overall relations between the two regions.
EU and national programs facilitating cooperation
In addition to bilateral partnerships, ranging from strategic cooperation and joint research projects to the exchange of students and researchers, the four Central and Eastern European countries are also embedded in EU programs that enable research cooperation (Horizon Europe) and student and researcher mobility (Erasmus+). However, since 2022, some 21 Hungarian universities do not receive funding from the Horizon Europe budget and cannot participate in the Erasmus+ program, as the EU imposed sanctions because, under the Orbán government, Hungary violated the principles of the rule of law. It is currently uncertain whether Hungary will be able to participate again in Erasmus+ from the coming academic year, as the necessary rule-of-law reforms have not yet been adopted.
Hungary launched a national program, the Pannonia Program, in early 2024 that supports global exchange with just under €28 million. Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia also have national programs that, in addition to the EU programs, promote cooperation and exchange with Southeast Asian universities. However, the respective programs usually cover all non-European countries, not Southeast Asia in particular. The programs are administered by the respective national agencies: the Czech National Agency for International Education and Research, the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange, and the Slovak Academic Information Agency. Some programs aim to recruit highly qualified doctoral candidates from Southeast Asia (or other regions), offering scholarships and covering living and travel costs.
A transnational funding program for mobility exchange and, albeit to a limited extent, research is ASEA-UNINET, which is administered by Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalization. It is interested in integrating Central European partners in addition to the six universities from Italy already represented in the network. Palacký University Olomouc (Czechia) is currently a candidate member. The network includes 57 Southeast Asian universities.
Methodology and data quality
The EUSEAR team combed the websites of all listed universities in Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia for partnerships with Southeast Asian universities as well as their participation in international, primarily EU, research programs (Horizon Europe) and mobility programs (Erasmus+), as well as national programs related to Southeast Asia. In addition, it examined, on a sample basis, the international list of partnerships of the Southeast Asian universities. It was found that they sometimes listed partnerships with Central European partners that were not, in turn, listed by those institutions, and vice versa. Secondary sources were also taken into account, such as media or embassy reports on the signing of MOUs or more far-reaching agreements.
As a supplement, the team used AI tools to identify additional partnerships and, above all, specific joint projects. The team checked all entries found by AI for their validity; not all AI suggestions were adopted.
The data listed in the tracker are as complete as possible. In some cases, especially regarding joint publications between university partners, they are deliberately illustrative. If information is missing or incorrect, please get in touch with us.
Work on this article was funded by the EU NextGenerationEU through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Slovakia under the project No. 09I03-03-V04-00462.
