Asia Research Centre

The Asia Research Centre (ARC) at the University of St.Gallen is a student-centred, network organization, focussing on Asia context-based management, research, teaching and practise-learning in service to academia, students and communities.

The activities in this Centre are organised within a matrix of Research and Practice Divisions involving Academic and Practice Concentrations and Geographical Regions and Learning Initiatives. 

Academic Research and Practice Divisions: The ARC is one of the leading European platforms for research on management in Asia. Building on strategic partenrships with leading Asian universities, the ARC focuses on relevant research in four areas: (1) International Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development, (2) Business, Financial and Management Decisions and Strategies, (3) Cross-cultural Business and Management studies, and (4) Technology and R&D Management.

The Geographical Regions covered in our research are (1) Northeast Asia (focus on China), (2) Southeast Asia (focus on ASEAN nations), and (3) South Asia (focus on India).

The Learning Initiatives at the ARC are varied and based on students' learning needs and the needs of society (social responsibility and responsiveness). Students' initiatives play an important role in the formulation and development of our projects. For example, the Centre has for many years been running successful business conferences, including the China Symposium, the India Symposium, and the Vietnam Symposium. Recently, again through students' initiative, the Sino-European Business Conference was successfully conceived and implemented on May 20, 2011. Regular study trips were set up to bring students to different parts of Asia each year since 1996. Other learning programs include the Asia Enterprise Studies Programme (AESP) and its Asia Field Scholarship Programme. This program sends students during the University vacation for attachment as interns in business development to Thailand and India, in collaboration with TBIRD in Thailand and Myrada in India from 1999-2001. The AESP is a fore-runner of the SEED programme (Social Entreprise for Economic Development) which has been successfully implemented every year since its first program in December 2007 in cooperation with partner universities of the ASEAN Learning Network.