The SMERU Research Institute has been a member of the Non-Traditional Security (NTS)-Asia Consortium since August 2016. We acknowledge the consortium as a prominent platform for networking and intellectual exchanges between regional scholars, analysts, and researchers. By being a member of the NTS-Asia Consortium, SMERU has benefited from research collaboration, information exchange, and mentorships; we can also adequately showcase our experts and expertise as well as promote our publications on the new NTS-Asia website and newsletter.

The NTS-Asia Consortium was launched in January 2007 as a network of non-traditional security research institutes and think tanks. The NTS Centre, RSIS, leads and coordinates this consortium as its Secretariat. The aims of the Consortium are as follows:

• To develop a platform for networking and intellectual exchange between regional NTS scholars and analysts
• To build long-term and sustainable regional capacity for research on NTS issues
• To mainstream and advance the field of non-traditional security studies in Asia
• To collate and manage a regional database of NTS publications and other resources

The NTS-Asia Consortium was relaunched in February 2016 with a number of new initiatives, including a revamped quarterly newsletter, a new website and database that will continue to be a useful repository of regional knowledge and publications in the field of non-traditional security, and other efforts to encourage information exchange, mentorship and research collaborations.
 

NTS-Asia Newsletter

As a follow-up to SMERU membership in NTS-Asia Consortium, our researchers Athia Yumna and Rika Kumala Dewi were featured in the NTS-Asia Newsletter (39th edition) of September 2016. 

The 'Meet the Expert’ article presents Athia's views and analysis on inequality in Indonesia, which is her area of expertise. In another article, the 'Young Researcher Profile', Rika’s experience as a researcher at SMERU is featured along with her short piece of writing on barriers to optimal breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices in Indonesia.

More information on the NTS-Asia Consortium can be found at http://www.rsis-ntsasia.org/