2026 ASEAN–Korea Young Scholar Research Grant: Archived Call for Southeast Asia Fieldwork

2026 ASEAN–Korea Young Scholar Research Grant: Archived Call for Southeast Asia Fieldwork

Historical reference: Applications for the 2026 round closed on 5 September 2026. The official programme pages do not announce a subsequent application cycle. This page records the terms of the closed round; it is not an open call, and the application form should not be treated as accepting applications for this round.

The ASEAN–Korea Young Scholar Research Grant (YSRG) supported postgraduate fieldwork connected to Southeast Asian Studies, ASEAN Studies, and ASEAN–Korea Studies. The 2026 call was issued by the Korean Association of Southeast Asian Studies (KASEAS) through the ASEAN–Korea Platform for Great Minds (AKPGM). It was designed for research grounded in a field site and intended to strengthen scholarly exchange across ASEAN and the Republic of Korea.

The call is useful as a reference for students, supervisors, and host institutions assessing the programme’s scope and previous application requirements. The information below describes the published 2026 round only. Funding, dates, selection priorities, or document requirements for any future round may differ. Prospective applicants should wait for a new official call and follow its instructions rather than reusing this closed-round form or timeline.

Key details of the closed round

AKPGM’s programme page describes the grant as selecting twelve graduate students each year: eleven from ASEAN Member States and one from the Republic of Korea. The specific 2026 call says the committee generally aims for up to one grant per ASEAN Member State and the Republic of Korea, subject to the quality of applications. These statements describe the programme’s intended regional distribution; neither guarantees that every country receives an award in every round.

What the award covered

The award combined travel support, living support during fieldwork, a modest payment to a local research advisor, and an academic exchange component. It was not presented as a general tuition scholarship or as a flexible research budget.

Round-trip international airfare was available for approved fieldwork. Applicants needed a coherent relationship between their proposed field site and research question. A funded destination should be understood as part of the approved project plan; a substantial change of site or purpose would need to be discussed with the organisers rather than assumed to be covered automatically.

The fieldwork stipend was US$1,400 per month for up to three months. The 2026 call states a maximum duration for this stipend, while the AKPGM programme description characterises the funded fieldwork as immersive work of at least three months. Read together, the programme materials present a three-month fieldwork commitment as the intended format. Applicants should not infer from the phrase “up to three months” that a shorter project would necessarily satisfy programme expectations. The stipend was fieldwork support for costs such as accommodation, food, and local transport; the published call did not describe it as a salary or promise separate equipment, assistant, transcription, or archival funding.

A US$200 honorarium for a local research advisor recognised the role of scholarly guidance at the research site. The application separately required a host institution introduction, indicating that the organisers expected a credible local institutional connection. The call did not spell out a detailed advisor contract or a process for disbursing this honorarium, so applicants would have needed to clarify practical arrangements with AKPGM if selected.

Participation in the Young Scholar Research Workshop connected grant recipients for online academic exchange. The workshop component reflects a programme goal beyond individual travel: sharing fieldwork progress and supporting a network of early-career scholars working on Southeast Asia and ASEAN–Korea relations.

The value of the package therefore depended on the applicant’s actual field plan. Airfare and the stipend could make in-person research feasible, but applicants still needed to budget honestly for expenses that the call did not list. A proposal relying on paid enumerators, specialist translation, expensive access, or equipment should have identified another funding source rather than treating the monthly stipend as covering every research cost.

Eligibility and research fit

The official 2026 call listed three core eligibility conditions. An applicant had to be a national of an ASEAN Member State or the Republic of Korea, be currently enrolled in a master’s or doctoral programme at a recognised institution in ASEAN or the Republic of Korea, and propose research relevant to Southeast Asian Studies, ASEAN Studies, or ASEAN–Korea Studies. The call described relevant work as including research on Southeast Asian societies, regional issues, and ASEAN–Korea relations.

Nationality and current enrolment were separate requirements. A student’s research topic alone could not substitute for either condition. The published wording does not suggest that applicants outside those nationalities or programmes could qualify through a supervisor or host institution. Because the 2026 round is closed, anyone considering a future application should check the next call for any changed definitions, documentation, or country coverage.

The programme prioritised applicants enrolled at institutions in their home countries. This was a priority rather than one of the three core eligibility bullets, so applicants enrolled elsewhere were not automatically excluded by the call. They did, however, need to understand that institutional location could affect the committee’s assessment.

Research scope also mattered. Applications could address any country or region in Southeast Asia, but the 2026 call gave priority to proposals that studied Southeast Asia beyond the applicant’s own national context. It warned that proposals focused exclusively on the applicant’s home country or current study country could receive lower priority. The broader AKPGM programme page describes home-country-only research more strictly as unsupported. For applicants to the 2026 round, the specific call’s published selection language is the clearest guide: it framed this as a priority distinction, rather than adding a fourth core eligibility condition. A proposal on one country still needed to explain its relevance to the wider regional field and should not have assumed that a broad programme description guaranteed acceptance.

The grant was intended primarily for Southeast Asian and related area studies. Proposals that were primarily technical, laboratory-based, or exclusively focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics were ineligible. The call allowed exceptions only for projects with strong engagement with the social sciences or humanities and a clear contribution to understanding Southeast Asia and ASEAN–Korea relations. A project’s interdisciplinary claim needed to be visible in its question and method, not added as a decorative sentence.

Application materials and process recorded in the call

The 2026 call instructed applicants to submit through an online application form. It listed five required uploads:

1. A research proposal.
2. A host institution introduction for the fieldwork site.
3. A curriculum vitae.
4. A certificate of enrolment from the current or most recent academic institution.
5. An academic transcript with records through the most recent semester.

The form linked from the official call was the submission route for the 2026 round. Since that deadline has passed, this archive does not invite applicants to submit through that form. Keep the link as a record of the route used, and confirm a future round’s application page from AKPGM or KASEAS before sharing personal or academic documents.

For students reviewing the previous requirements, the list shows that preparation depended on several people and offices. A transcript and enrolment certificate came from the academic institution; the host introduction required contact with an organisation at the intended field site; and the proposal had to explain the research question and practical plan. Those are useful lessons for planning, but they are not a promise that a future call will request the same five documents. The official call gives the online form as its submission route but does not state that late applications are accepted. Since the published deadline has passed, treat that form link as part of the 2026 record rather than as an invitation to submit now.

A strong proposal under the published criteria would have connected intellectual contribution to feasibility. The committee assessed academic quality, originality and significance; relevance to Southeast Asian, ASEAN, or ASEAN–Korea studies; the quality and feasibility of the fieldwork; and the applicant’s research capacity and preparedness. A proposal therefore needed to make clear what would be learned at the site, why that fieldwork was necessary, how the applicant would gain access, and what experience prepared them to carry it out.

The host institution introduction was more than a formality: it supplied evidence that the fieldwork plan had a real local relationship. A useful introduction would have made the host’s role and connection to the proposed work understandable. The call itself did not publish a template or minimum contents for this document, so applicants should not mistake suggested contents for a formal rule.

Published timeline and its limits

The official call placed the application deadline on 5 September 2026, with results announced in the fourth week of October 2026 and orientation in the second week of November 2026. It set the fieldwork period as late November 2026 through April 2027. Those dates leave a short interval between the scheduled result and the start of fieldwork. For the closed round, applicants whose projects depended on ethics review, research permits, language support, or site access would have had reason to consider those dependencies early.

The timeline is retained here as a record of what applicants were told, not as a current schedule. The results and orientation dates were planned milestones in the call; this page does not independently verify whether each event occurred on schedule. Applicants and researchers citing the programme should distinguish a published plan from a confirmed outcome.

Field conditions vary across Southeast Asia. A proposal for a future round should explain how the intended season, local calendar, travel, language, and permissions shape the research design. That is practical planning advice, not a separate requirement stated in the 2026 call. The formal evaluation criteria remain the official guide to what the committee said it assessed.

Selection priorities and evaluation

The published priorities help explain what kinds of proposals aligned most closely with the programme. First, the committee favoured applicants enrolled at institutions in their home countries. Second, it favoured research that treated Southeast Asia beyond the applicant’s own national context. Third, it excluded work that was primarily technical, laboratory-based, or exclusively STEM-focused, except for projects with substantial social-science or humanities engagement and a clear regional contribution.

These priorities should be represented accurately. The home-country institutional preference and the wider regional scope were priorities, not additional citizenship rules. The call’s language on home-country-only research said such proposals could receive lower priority; it did not declare every single-country study ineligible. The STEM language was stronger: projects in the stated excluded categories were not eligible unless they met the narrowly described interdisciplinary exception.

The four evaluation criteria were academic quality and significance, relevance to the programme’s fields, fieldwork quality and feasibility, and the applicant’s research capacity and preparedness. A persuasive fieldwork design would ordinarily make its site, methods, access, timing, language arrangements, and preparation understandable. Those details help demonstrate feasibility, but the 2026 call did not prescribe a single method or proposal format in the text available on its page.

The programme’s regional distribution goal also did not mean that an applicant could assume a country quota guaranteed an award. The call qualified the aim by application quality. A competitive application still had to meet the stated eligibility conditions and demonstrate a worthwhile, feasible project.

What to check before a future round

The AKPGM News listing and programme page continue to show the 2026 grant call and do not announce a later application cycle. The programme page retains an “Apply Now” link to the form used for the 2026 round, but that link does not change the call’s published 5 September 2026 deadline or establish that submissions remain open. The programme’s annual description is not itself a new call. This page therefore records a closed cycle; students should wait for a dated announcement from KASEAS or AKPGM before preparing an application for another round.

If AKPGM or KASEAS publishes another call, prospective applicants should verify the deadline, award amount, minimum fieldwork period, eligible enrolment locations, geographic focus, and required documents directly from that notice. The official programme page and call announcement are the best starting points. Contact details published by AKPGM include [email protected] and the Asiatic Research Center at Korea University in Seoul. A direct enquiry can clarify an ambiguous point, but it does not replace the written requirements of a new call.

For supervisors and host institutions, the archived terms offer a compact picture of the programme’s purpose: field-based graduate research, regional academic exchange, and locally grounded work. They can help identify whether a student’s broad interests may fit the programme, while leaving all application decisions contingent on a future official notice.

Official references

• 2026 call for applications: https://www.akpgm.org/post/call-for-applications-2026-young-scholar-research-grant-ysrg
• AKPGM programme information: https://www.akpgm.org/programs-1
• AKPGM homepage: https://www.akpgm.org/
• Application form referenced by the 2026 call: https://forms.gle/ByMAaDezmX2YdS6A8 (for the closed 2026 round)
• Contact: [email protected]

This page is a historical guide to the published 2026 call. The official organisers’ wording governs any interpretation, and any future round must be checked against its own announcement.