About

Under the supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Space (MESRE), the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), or French School of Asian Studies, is a member of the réseaux des Écoles françaises à l’Étranger (ResEFE), or Network of French Schools Abroad, and a partner of Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL).

The EFEO reports on its activities to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, which approves its recruitment and produces an annual report on its scientific activities. The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques are represented on the EFEO’s Academic Council and Board of Administrators.

The EFEO’s headquarters are located at the Maison de l’Asie in Paris. These premises house the central administration, the Paris library, the photo library and the archives; however, the EFEO operates across the Asian continent through a network of 18 research centres and branches, established in a dozen countries.

The EFEO’s scholarly mission is the study of Asian civilisations. Its field of research extends from India to China, Korea and Japan, including the whole of South-East Asia, from ancient times to the present day.

The EFEO’s professors and lecturers carry out fundamental research, characterised by its long-term nature and its basis in fieldwork. Whilst half of the academic staff are posted in Asia, those based in Paris have the opportunity to undertake extended fieldwork assignments in their areas of study each year.

Dense and enduring networks of local and international researchers have formed around the EFEO’s centres, upon which the EFEO has been able to build to foster its growth and launch a large number of collaborative projects. The EFEO approaches Asia through multidisciplinary research in the humanities and social sciences, combining archaeology, epigraphy, philology, history, art and architectural history, anthropology and religious studies.

Over the decades, the EFEO has developed long-standing academic partnerships and numerous collaborations with Asian institutions. Today, alongside centres based at their own premises – such as in Pondicherry, Chiang Mai, Kyoto, Siem Reap, Hanoi, Vientiane and Jakarta – others are based within prestigious local academic institutions, including universities, research centres and academies:

• Tōyō Bunko (Oriental Library), Tokyo Centre
• Asiatic Research Institute, Korea University, Seoul Centre
• Beijing Normal University, Beijing Centre
• Fudan University, Shanghai Centre
• Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Centre
• Academia Sinica, Taipei Centre
• University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur Centre
• Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, Bangkok Centre
• Deccan College, Pune Centre

Another distinctive feature of the EFEO is its ability to host researchers from other French or foreign institutions at its centres in Asia for one or more years. These researchers, who are generally already partners in research programmes led by the EFEO, have access to its extensive documentary resources—which have been gradually built up at its centres over decades—and can benefit from its local scientific partnerships.

The originality of the EFEO’s scientific programme also lies in its ability to undertake large-scale, cross-disciplinary projects within its areas of excellence, such as the study of the spread of Buddhism, bringing together the work of various specialists and its centres across Asia, or projects on Sanskrit epigraphy covering most countries in South-East Asia, Khmer epigraphy or Sino-Vietnamese epigraphy.

The use of the very latest technologies in the service of research in Asian studies lies at the heart of the EFEO’s objectives, as well as those of its partners in the various countries where it operates. The creation and online publication of databases containing heritage corpora—often previously unpublished—the development of geographic information systems (GIS), surveys using light detection and ranging (LiDAR) for site planning and environmental studies, and other recent tools derived from the physical and biological sciences, have enabled the renewal of many of its methods of analysis and dating, particularly in archaeology.

Whilst the EFEO’s primary focus remains fundamental research, its academic staff are also tasked with passing on the skills and knowledge they have acquired in the field, which are sometimes unique and require a high degree of specialisation. The EFEO does not award degrees, which is why its lecturers and researchers are affiliated with the doctoral schools of several universities and leading higher education institutions, in particular the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE – PSL) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), the EFEO’s two long-standing partners with whom it has established a Master’s in Asian Studies, organised into two specialisations: one, ‘History, Philology and Religions: Texts, Archaeology, Systems of Thought’, led by the EFEO and the EPHE – PSL, and the other ‘History and Social Sciences: Fieldwork, Texts and Images’, led by the EFEO and the EHESS. EFEO researchers also supervise students at the centres in Asia, through fieldwork placements and grants offered to Master’s and PhD students. The EFEO’s headquarters at the Maison de l’Asie, which houses the central library, is also a vibrant hub of academic activity, where teaching, lectures and symposia are interwoven with the daily life of the academic community working there.

Translated with DeepL.com