Институт за азијске студије
Institute for Asian Studies
Београд, Србија
Belgrade, Serbia
СРБ
ENG
Institute for Asian Studies
Institute for Asian Studies (IAS, Belgrade, Serbia) is a think-tank that pursues research, education, publishing, and consulting activities to promote knowledge about Asia and support cooperation between Central and South-Eastern Europe and Asian countries. Its geographical focus is PR China, Japan, India, Republic of Korea, PDR of Korea, Russian Federation, Central Asian and Caspian states, Turkey, ASEAN countries, and Australia.
IAS researches each country's internal political, economic and social development, foreign policy, foreign economic relations, regional economic integrations, political, security, infrastructural, interpersonal and other cooperation issues and structures that define Asia's presence and determine its future development.
IAS publishes the annual magazine “Asian Issues” and is focused on building a network with partner institutions from Asia and other parts of the world.
Research Team
Professor Dragana Mitrović, PhD
IAS Founder and IAS President
Dragana Mitrović, PhD, full time professor at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, Faculty of Political Sciences and founder and director of the Institute for Asian Studies (www.ias.rs) is a leading regional expert for economy, politics and security of modern China and the East Asia. She is the founder and head of the Centre for Asian and Far Eastern Studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences. She is founder and chief editor of the academic journal Asian Issues. Prof. Mitrovic has a full university career from an assistant position to the current one. She also served one term in Foreign Service at the Embassy of the FR Yugoslavia in Beijing as Counsellor for Political Affairs (2001, 2002) and at the Embassy of Serbia and Montenegro as Minister Counsellor for Economic and Political Affairs (2003, 2004). Professor Mitrovic teaches Political Economy, Political Economy of International Relations, Political Economy of the PR China and East Asia, Geopolitics and Geo-economics. She is the head of the Regional Asian Studies master course. Prof. Mitrovic is the author of five books and more than sixty papers. Prof. Mitrovic participated in more than forty international academic conferences, where she took part as an invited speaker. From 2008 she is a member of the Board of Economic Science of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has regularly been invited by domestic and foreign electronic media to interpret current processes and events within the area of her expertise.
For more, please visit: http://www.fpn.bg.ac.rs/en/teachers-and-staff/prof-mitrovic-dragana/
Email: dragana.mitrovic@ias.rs; dragana.mitrovic@fpn.bg.ac.rs
Frank DHONT
MA (Lund), MA (UGM)
PhD (Yale University, USA)
Senior Research Fellow
Frank Dhont is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, National Cheng Kung University. He previously worked as Senior Lecturer in FASS-IAS, the University of Brunei Darussalam, has been Visiting Fellow at TU Dortmund University and at City University of Hong Kong. He works on Indonesia and the broader Malay world. As a historian of the 20th century his major research interests include the reactions of both indigenous rulers and ordinary people to Japanese colonialism in the Netherlands Indies and the Malay world during World War II. He is also interested in the history of both World Wars in Asia and the spread of ideologies such as nationalism and Islam, especially in the context of colonial empires in Asia. After he came to Brunei his research interests also extended to the Japanese Occupation of Brunei and Borneo in the 20th Century. As an Indonesianist and a historian of Southeast Asia, he is regularly involved in multidisciplinary research initiatives and is founder and chair of the International Indonesia Forum.
Email: frank.dhont@ias.rs
Dr. Jagannath Panda
IAS member
Senior Research Fellow
Dr. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Sweden. He is also the Director for Europe-Asia Research Cooperation at the YCAPS, Senior Fellow at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS), The Hague; and an International Research Fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS) in Japan. Dr. Panda is the Series Editor for Routledge Studies on Think Asia. Dr. Panda is the author of the book India-China Relations (Routledge: 2017) and China’s Path to Power: Party, Military and the Politics of State Transition (Pentagon Press: 2010). Dr. Panda’s recent work includes Quad Plus and Indo-Pacific (Routledge: 2021); Scaling India-Japan Cooperation in Indo-Pacific and Beyond 2025 (KW Publishing Ltd. 2019), and The Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific Power Politics: Status Security at Stake (Routledge, 2020).
Giovanni Nicotera
BA in Law
IAS member
Email: giovanni.nicotera@ias.rs
Mr. Nicotera served with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) from 1997 to 2012. At the UN headquarters in Vienna he held several positions, including servicing the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and the Operations Branch. Later, from 2005 to 2012, he was the Head of the UNODC Office in the People’s Republic of China. Before joining the UN he worked in the Russian Federation and, previous to that, in Italy as a lawyer.
Mr. Nicotera graduated in Law at the University of Modena (Italy) and later qualified as an Attorney at Law. He has pursued postgraduate studies in international law, contemporary history, political economy, negotiations and diplomacy with a scholarship granted by the Ministry of Foreign Trade. He is interested in developments related to criminal justice reform in the P.R.China.
Badar Alam Iqbal
Emeritus Professor
IAS Honorary Distinguished Non-resident Fellow
Email: dr.iqbal@iubat.edu
Emeritus Professor Badar Alam Iqbal; (Ph.D. & DBA; M.Com; DSW; B.A. [Hons] Economic had been the DAAD, Fellow at German Institute of Economic Research; Berlin, Kiel Institute of World Economics; Kiel, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg; Germany; Ford Foundation, American Research Center USA; Fulbright Visiting Professor; USA; Institute of Developing Economies; Tokyo; Former Fulbright scholar-in-Residence (SIR) 2004-05 at School of Business; Claflin University; South Carolina, USA. In 2016-17, the Fulbright Commission Washington has again nominated for Scholar-in-residence (SIR) at School of Business; Kentucky State University; USA.
Now Dr. Iqbal is Emeritus Professor; External-Relation- Chair of Research at Federic Bastiat Institute for African Research; Ghana. Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Economics and Finance, Monarch University, Switzerland; Visiting Professor at University of Rennes1, France; University of South Africa; Former Extra Ordinary Professor, School of Economic Sciences; North-West University; South Africa; Visiting Professor of Research; Vaal University of Technology; South Africa; International Islamic University Malaysia. In 2021, 2022, the Vice Chancellors of the three leading South African Universities.
He published TNCR and was Routledge publisher and serving Editor for special issues for Sage, Emarald, Elsevier; Kluwer and Springer.
Prof. Iqbal began his career in 1978, as an academician as Lecturer, Reader, Professor and Dean. He was Chairman, Department of Commerce and Vice Chancellor. He also worked as Officiating Finance Officer, A.M.U. Aligarh. Prof. Iqbal was Member of University Court and University’s Executive Council. Served as Member Coordinator for National Assessment and Accreditation Council, Government of India. Prof. Iqbal has been Member of Advisory Board, Department of Economics, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa.
In 2022, QS Global Academic Survey has invited Prof. Badar Iqbal to participate in Global Universities Ranking Survey. In 2023 the Times Higher Education; London invited Prof. Badar Iqbal to participate in upcoming Global Interdisciplinary Research Survey.
Email: dr.iqbal@iubat.edu
Srđan Perišić, PhD
IAS member
Srđan Perišić, PhD, graduated at the Military Academy in Belgrade. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences in two scientific realms – Political Theory and Methodology of Political Sciences. The title of his dissertation was: “Liberalism as a Constraint to Modern Democracy.” Geopolitics, especially Geopolitics of Russia, stood out as another area of his interest. He also completed his PhD studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences. He did his PhD dissertation in the field of Political Theory. His doctoral dissertation was devoted to postmodern transformation of liberalism in the context of global phenomena, international relations and alternations of modern categories. His fields of interest are Political Theory, International Relations and Geopolitical Theory. His scientific engagement is primarily dedicated to research into the new era (postmodernism) and the meaning of liberalism, post politics, and post philosophy in the postmodern context; with the focus being on exploring post political practice in society, international relations and geopolitics. He teaches International Politics and Geopolitics, as well as Foreign Policy of Serbia. His works have been published in scientific and theoretical journals issued by the leading scientific institutes in Serbia.
Email: srdjan.perisic@ias.rs
Ivan Zarić, PhD
IAS member
Ivan Zarić, PhD, graduated at the Military Academy, Naval Department. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, International Relations Department, in the area of Geopolitics and Geostrategy. His PhD thesis was “Thalassocratic dimension of contemporary Chinese geopolitics”.
The focus of his scientific research is primarily on the geopolitical issues, especially the military power, sea power, strategy, as well as energy security. He has published several articles and texts related to geopolitical phenomena and processes, covering topics ranging from the classical theories to contemporary trends. He is also engaged as a visiting lecturer in the field of Geopolitics and International relations in several institutions in the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Srpska.
Email: ivan.zaric@ias.rs
Dragan Trailović, PhD
MA in Regional Asian Studies
IAS Executive Director
Dragan Trailović graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade in 2008. He holds Master degree in Regional Studies – Asia. He received his PhD from the same faculty in 2019. Dragan Trailovic works as a Research Associate at the Institute for Political Studies in Belgrade. He is one of the editorial boards' secretaries of the scientific journal “Serbian Political Thought” published by Institute for Political Studies and journal “Asian issues” published by Institute for Asian Studies, Belgrade. His fields of research are political, economic and social processes in Central Asia; Ethnic conflicts in China – Xinjiang, Tibet; Eurasian geopolitics. He is the author of several articles related to Asian issues, China and other topics.
Email: dragan.trailovic@ias.rs
Marko Tmušić, PhD
Technical Аssistant
Marko Tmusic, PhD, is an assistant professor at Department of Political Economy and Finance at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade. He graduated at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade in 2007. Master academic studies Political violence and the state ended in 2008 at the same faculty. He also attended the specialized academic studies - Regional Asian Studies. His PhD thesis was "The impact of institutional quality on economic development and the effects of privatization in Serbia." He is also a member of the editorial board of "Asian Issues" whose publisher is IAS. His areas of research are: institutional economics, institutions and economic growth, privatization, political and economic transition, public finances. He has authored several scientific papers in these areas of research.
IAS Associates and Advisors
Bojan Stanković
BA in Political Science
IAS member
Email: bojan.stankovic@ias.rs
Ambassador Teruhiko Shinada
IAS Special Adviser
Teruhiko Shinada served in the diplomatic service of Japan for more than 40 years. Education: Faculty of Economics, Keio University, Japan. As a diplomat, he was in numerous oversees positions: the Embassy of Japan in Belgrade (1980-86, 1992-95, 2006-10), the Office of High Representative in Sarajevo (1996), Japan’s Mission to the U.N. in New York (1997-98), Embassy of Japan in Vienna (1999-2001). At the MOFA in Tokyo, he conducted the duties of Senior Foreign Policy Coordinator (2010-12), Senior Coordinator for Global Environmental Issues (2013-14), Senior Coordinator for the Paris Club (2014-15), Director of the Exchange Programs Division in the Foreign Minister’s Secretariat and Assistant Chief Cabinet Secretary’s Adviser for 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympics Games (2015-16). From 2016 to 2022, served as the first resident Ambassador of Japan to Barbados. Shinada was also a lecturer of the Serbian language at the University of Tokyo (2002-04). He assumed the post of IAS Special Adviser in May 2022.
Email: japandesk@ias.rs