The missions of the EFEO

On-site Fieldwork in Asia

Theri Patacara manuscript

The French School of Asian Studies (École française d’Extrême-Orient, or EFEO) is an institution under the aegis of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research whose scholarly mission is the study of the classical civilizations of Asia through the humanities and social sciences. The field of its research extends from India to China and Japan and includes all of Southeast Asia. Thus it covers almost all the societies that have fallen under Chinese or Indian influence during the course of history. The seventeen centers and branches of the EFEO, established in twelve countries across Asia, form the nexus for closely allied long-term networks of local and international academic cooperation. The EFEO approaches the study of Asia through multidisciplinary, comparative research projects bringing together archaeology, history, anthropology, philology, and religious studies. The work of the EFEO in Asia – given the presence of its members in the regions they are studying – naturally also extends to questions concerning the contemporary world.

A Network of International Excellence in Scholarship

Over the decades the EFEO has built up many collaborative endeavors with Asian partners as well as with Western scholars, especially those from Europe. Today, alongside centers with their own premises (including Pondicherry, Chiang Mai, Siem Reap, Hanoi, Vientiane, Jakarta, Kyoto), several branches are housed within prestigious local scholarly institutions: universities, research centers, academies, museums, and the like. This is the case with Pune, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Yangon, Phnom Penh, Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, and Tokyo.

The EFEO hosts French and international scholars in its Asian centers for extended periods of field research. These colleagues, usually taking part in EFEO research programs, have access to rich documentary resources built up in the course of a century of scholarly engagement in Asia, and benefit from the School’s manifold links with local scholarly communities. Since 2007 the EFEO has taken the initiative in setting up, with some twenty European institutions, the European Consortium for Asian Field Study (ECAF). Thus the EFEO is now situated at the interface of a sizeable Euro-Asian network of international collaboration among specialists in Asian studies.

Cross-cultural Studies and new Technology

Restoring and digitizing Khmer Buddhist manuscript

A special feature of the EFEO’s scholarly mission lies in the School’s ability to carry out, in the fields in which it excels, wide-ranging cross-cultural projects like the study of the spread of Buddhism from India to Japan, coordinating the work of different centers across Asia, or research on the epigraphy of the Khmer world (CIK), based on resources from most of the nations of continental Southeast Asia.

A central concern of the EFEO and its Asian partners is the use of the recent technology in the service of research in Asian studies. The digitization and online availability of the catalogs of all libraries in the EFEO’s centers are almost complete, as is that of its scholarly journals. Geographical information systems and other new tools developed in the physical and biological sciences are leading to the improvement of many methods of analysis and dating, especially in archaeology.

The Spread of Knowledge

The primary aim of the EFEO remains that of academic research, but its members also have the responsibility to pass on their skills, often requiring a high degree of specialization, along with the knowledge they have gained in the field. The EFEO therefore actively recruits and trains new researchers, both in France and internationally, but also in its centers in Asia, through internships and scholarships for fieldwork awarded to doctoral candidates and post-doctoral research workers. The EFEO headquarters at the Maison de l’Asie (Asia House) in Paris, which houses its central library, is also a very lively center for scholarly activity (research, instruction, lectures, colloquia, book launchings).