Composition of units
To arrive at its vision and goals, the Institute for International Studies and Public Policy embrace three research centers and three academic departments, and incorporates the IISPP’s strategic activities (provision of academic programs, research and training, and/or knowledge dissemination) into missions of its centers and departments. Per Diagram 2 below, RUPP’s IISPP features: 1. Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 2. Center for Cambodian Studies, 3. Cambodia’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Research Center, 4. Department of International Relations, 5. Department of International Economics, and 6. Department of Political Science and Public Policy. Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Center for Cambodian Studies, and Cambodia’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Research Center incorporate IISPP’s strategic activities on research, training, and knowledge dissemination. In the meanwhile, the Department of International Relations, Department of International Economics, and Department of Political Science and Public Policy incorporate IISPP’s strategy activity on the provision of academic programs (Teaching and academic research). Refer to Diagram 1 for an organizational structure of the the Institute for International Studies and Public Policy.
Diagram 1: Organizational Structure
Centre for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS)
Southeast Asia is the home to the world’s most dynamic and fastest growing regions and the center of complex histories, vast inter-state and intra-state diversities, and deeply rooted multidimensional challenges. As such, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) aims to be a highly reliable and advanced hub of knowledge on Southeast Asian affairs to catalyze progress and advance prospects of positive integration, peace, and development. With its pool of high-caliber researchers, IISPP’s CSEAS aims to be an alternative to ad-hoc research, training, and policy dialogue arrangements with limited or short-lived national and regional impacts.
IISPP’s CSEAS embraces five main functions: research and capacity building, foreign language studies, policy dialogues, ASEAN knowledge hub, and outreach and networking. To put into perspective, the center aims to foster advanced, original, and rigorous research on complex topics and issues of high relevance to Southeast Asia, enhance knowledge production, and generate and disseminate research-based publications (CSEAS Book, the CSEAS Insight, the Cambodian Explorer, and CSEAS Policy Brief), which will be an alternative to many existing publications that tend to be largely empirical and descriptive in their accounts of topics. The center also intends to covert its well-refined theoretical, methodological, and empirical engagement into well-balanced and highly credible research-based insights and policy recommendations. In this connection, CSEAS’s research programs tend to be comprehensive and will be centered on 1. ASEAN Focus, 2. Regional Economic Studies, 3. Security, Political and Strategic Studies, 4. Socio-cultural Studies, 5. Country Studies Program, and 6. Vietnamese Studies. In line with this, to maximize impacts, the center also aims to provide research capacity training, professional connectivity training, and foreign language training to policymakers, public servants, researchers, and relevant stakeholders.
As an apolitical research center and think-tank, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh also strives to enhance face-to-face and/or virtual research and policy dialogues by developing a pool of experts in Cambodia and in the Southeast Asian region to discuss and share their expertise to the public through workshops, lectures and seminars, conferences, booth camps, research expos and policy dialogues with Track I officials. IISPP’s CSEAS also aims to cultivate a research society through hosting, among others, research exchanges, fellowships, and internships; promoting research studies and mobility; and attracting, as far as, young research enthusiasts on Southeast Asian affairs to engage in research culture.
Centre for Cambodian Studies (CCS)
To bridge knowledge gaps in Cambodia, especially concerning its experiences and perspectives, the Center for Cambodia Studies (CCS) aims to provide a platform for investigating both historical and contemporary dimensions of issues confronting Cambodia and also to become a breeding ground for theoretical/conceptual innovations to better understand the country and countries as such. The center focuses on three strategic activities: conducting and hosting research, providing training, and coordinating knowledge production and dissemination with local and international partners.
In this relation, IISPP’s CCS will conduct its research, coordinate collaborative work, and host independently funded local and international researchers. Its research is focused on both local and transnational issues and aims to be multidisciplinary in orientation by drawing on the social sciences and humanities, including anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, linguistics, geography, and history. As such, this center’s main research programs will cover 1. Political, security, and economic interfaces and transformations, 2. Development strategies, migration, urbanization, and intra and cross-border trades, and 3. Public policy experiences, identity, and socio-cultural developments. On top of this, IISPP’s CCS will also provide Khmer-for-Foreigners Classes at all levels, Master Classes on specialized topics to be taught by experts, and Summer School on a more introductory level for those interested in some knowledge expansion and skill improvement. IISPP’s CCS will also undertake knowledge dissemination through monthly seminars and working papers based on the center’s research activities.
Cambodia’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Research Centre (CMSRRC)
Against the backdrops of evolving international system and power structure and of China’s Belt and Road Initiative’s large socio-economic transformation potential, Cambodia’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Research Centre (CMSRRC) is established to timely interpret, inform, and influence developments and policy-making for the benefits and interests of Cambodia in all areas of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. IISPP’s CMSRRC has objectives to promote intensive learning about the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, provide training courses for connectivity professionals, and advance exchanges of views on China’s “neighborhood diplomacy.” This center embraces three main functions in teaching and research, training and workshop, and publications and dissemination.
In its first strategic function of teaching and research, CMSRRC conducts rigorous policy research activities and projects under its three broad themes of political and strategic program, economic and financial program, and socio, cultural and environmental program. The center also offers public lectures and short intensive certificate courses to students and the public on China and the Belt and Road Initiative, particularly the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. In its second function, CMSRRC partners with research think tanks from China and the Southeast Asian region to provide training courses to connectivity professionals including policymakers, civil servants, and researchers on diplomatic, business, economic and cultural approaches to the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The center also organizes periodic forums, and conferences. and regional symposiums and engages in policy dialogues, interviews, and commentaries. In its third function of publications and dissemination, CMSRRC publishes and disseminates its research products including books, policy briefs, articles and chapters, symposium proceedings, and videos to, among others, public institutions, think-tanks, associations, private sector, and education institutions.
Department of International Relations (DIR)
In view of the fact that Cambodia has experienced fast-paced development and become increasingly integrated into regional and global systems and that Cambodia has, however, remained in need of broader perspectives and rational worldviews, IISPP’s DIR, a descendent of the Department of International Studies, aims to produce a pool of high quality and intellectually matured graduates with expertise in International Relations. It embraces its primary missions in teaching and research, engagement and services, and international cooperation and integration.
Under the rubrics of its four core values of excellence, integrity, professionalism, and selfless services, IISPP’s DIR offers its undergraduate and graduate students a distinctive B.A in International Relations (BA-IR) and a Master of Science in International Affairs (MSc.IA). Its programs embrace interdisciplinary coherence and are divided into thematic clusters of, among others, Global Governance Studies, Regional and Area Studies, International Law and Organizations, and Conflict Resolutions and Security Studies. From its rigorous and intensive degree programs, IISPP’s DIR intends to equip its students with highly relevant theoretical and practical knowledge, research skills, critical thinking and analytical skills, and transferable skills necessary for their successful careers in international affairs and the relevant.
Department of International Economics (D.I.Eco)
In response to the rapidly changing, fast-paced, and the hypercompetitive world of economic interdependence, complexities, and crises and in line with Cambodia’s aspirations to use economic diplomacy and to become an upper-middle-income country, IISPP’s Department of International Economics (D.I.Eco) is envisioned to equip its students with highly relevant competences and necessary adaption and innovation skills for their careers in economics. IISPP’s D.I.Eco, thus, offers a Bachelor of Science in Economics (BSc-Eco) with four concentrations in 1. International Economics, 2. Digital Economics, 3. Managerial Economics, 4. Actuarial Economics and Master of Science in International Political Economy (MSc-IPE).
To underline, DIE’s undergraduate program in Economics will enrich its students with a baseline of theoretical, empirical, and analytical tools, economic models, quantitative and qualitative techniques, and rational problem-solving skills. Students will also be introduced to the growing challenges of, among others, markets, trade, banking, and financial systems, and monetary integration. Based on students’ chosen specialization, IISPP’s D.I.Eco will equip students with knowledge and understanding of, among others, economic interactions between/among countries/institutions; non-traditional, digital connections and economic strategies/outputs; rational managerial decision-making in the face of challenges, obstacles, and scarce resources; and most plausible analyses and assessment of risks and uncertainty to develop best possible strategies to minimize the related costs or consequences. In its more advanced program of MSc-IPE, IISPP’s D.I.Eco will equip its students with advanced theoretical, analytical, and research tools and expose its students to the interaction between economics and politics and their influences on one another.
Department of Political Science and Public Policy (DPSPP)
To produce Cambodia’s well-rounded and skillful graduates with in-depth knowledge in politics and public policy for the country’s strong, well-responding, and robust system, IISPP’s Department of Political Science and Public Policy (DPSPP) offers rigorous, multi-disciplinary programs in political science and public policy. IISPP’s DPSPP offers a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and Public Administration (BA-PPA) and Master of Science in Public Policy (MSc-PP) and incorporates in its programs a holistic and integrative spirit of liberal thinking through a series of interactive lectures, seminars, workshops, case studies, and simulations.
IISPP’s DPSPP intends to equip its students with theoretical, conceptual, substantive, and methodological lenses in political science and public policy. The program will enable its students to study complex beings of state, nation, government, and their institutions, processes, ideologies, policies, and behaviors. The program will also deepen the knowledge and understanding of its students of cross-cutting themes including conflicts and transnational politics and equip them with critical skills and social scientific literacy for them to succeed in their careers. Likewise, the study of public policy at IISPP’s DPSPP will enable students to understand the nature and roles of policy, policy design, and policy process and development. While exposing its students to challenges faced by states and their people, DPSPP will also enrich them with well-rounded perspectives on policy issues and a versatile base of knowledge and skills to comprehend, interpret, analyze, and/or develop policy solutions for challenges facing society.
Department of Vietnamese Studies (D.V.N.S)
Beginning from the Đổi Mới economic reform in the late 1980s, Vietnam has steadily grown both economically and culturally and transformed significantly to become an important key player in the region. In the context of bilateral relationship, Vietnam’s proximity to and long border sharing with Cambodia heightens its importance and implications for Cambodian foreign policy and development. Despite Vietnam’s growing importance and influence in the region and the intertwined relationship, a well-organized study of Vietnam has remained neglected among students, scholars, and researchers in Cambodia. Therefore, the founding of the Department of Vietnamese Studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) aims at bridging this academic gap by enabling students, scholars, researchers, policymakers and practitioners, and the general public in Cambodia to maximize instrumental benefits from socio-cultural, political and economic interfaces with high-quality knowledge in Vietnamese language, history, economics, politics, and culture. Therefore, D.V.N.S offers a Bachelor of Arts in Vietnamese Studies, Vietnamese Translation and Interpretation, Vietnamese Business Communication, and a Pre-Departure Vietnamese Language Program to Cambodian students.
Partners
The IISPP aims to build partnerships with academic and non-academic institutions locally and internationally. The following list includes potential partners for which the IISPP can engage with in various capacities:
- Royal School of Administration (Cambodia)
- Asian Vision Institute (Cambodia)
- The Center for Khmer Studies (Cambodia)
- Cambodia Development Center CD-Center (Cambodia)
- ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (Singapore)
- Royal Academy of Cambodia (Cambodia)
- University of Social Science and Humanities HCM (Vietnam)
- Cambodia Development Resource Institute (Cambodia)
- Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University (Japan)
- Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies at Rangsit University (Thailand)
- International Institute for Asian Studies (The Netherlands)
- National University of Vietnam HCM (Vietnam)
- And others,
Contact Info
- Phone: 023 885 419
- Email: info.iispp@rupp.edu.kh
- Address: # Russian Bvld., Toul Kork, Phnom Penh
Student Life
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