Staff research focus on the following interdisciplinary areas, covering Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Southeast Asian region as a whole:

• production of knowledge and scholarship in Southeast Asia
• archaeology, material heritage and critical approaches to the past
• political economy and state-society relations
• regional integration, financial cooperation, international relations and economic development
• indigeneity, cultural identities and artistics expressions
• borderlands, infrastructures, and mobilities
• science, technology, and modernity