On April 18th, 2024, Dr. Hasan Ansori, the Executive Director of the Habibie Center, a think tank in Indonesia, visited the Director of SNUAC. This visit was enabled by an invitation from the Korea Foundation. Dr. Ansori was greeted by Director Suhong Chae of SNUAC, Dr. Jong-Cheol Kim (Research Fellow), Dr. Suk-Ki Kong (Research Fellow), Prof. Jiwon Suh (Dept. of Asian Languages & Civilizations), HK Research Prof. Dae-yeong Youn (Southeast Asia Center), and Jinyoung Park (Ph.D. student, Dept. of Geography).

During the hour-long meeting, both parties introduced SNUAC and the Habibie Center to each other. The Habibie Center is a non-governmental organization that carries out research and seminars for policy proposals, mostly on democracy and human rights. Recent research has been conducted in three areas, democracy, environment (climate change), and science and technology. Among the topics, the specific research interests of the center are the role of media during the election period, social tolerance, and peace within the ASEAN regions. The Habibie Center strives to be a connecting hub of the ASEAN countries and has hosted several academic events related to democracy and human rights of the region. The center now aims to expand its cooperative connections with other regions including Northeast Asia.

SNUAC and the Habibie Center agreed on continuous cooperation over visiting scholars, joint research, and joint academic events. Discussion especially dealt with Korea-Indonesia and ASEAN cooperative projects for the Southeast Asia Center and the Civil Society and NGOs Program of SNUAC. Furthermore, Dr. Ansori introduced Habibie Center’s signature program called Habibie Democracy Forum and discussed SNUAC’s participation in the forum. The Habibie Center now plans to hold an international academic conference on democracy and will continue to discuss its cooperation with SNUAC on the matter.