Penang Institute

Penang Institute is one of Malaysia’s major think tanks. Funded by the Penang state government, it was established in 1997 (as SERI, the Socio-economic and Environmental Research Institute), and underwent a name change in 2011 as part of a rebranding exercise to reflect the heightened ambitions of the state to secure Penang’s reputation as an intellectual hub and as the culture capital of the country, and to enhance Penang’s reputation in ASEAN and beyond.

With the tagline “Making Ideas Work”, Penang Institute encourages bold and innovative thinking not only in academic disciplines but also through the support it gives to literature and culture by way of events such as book launches, public literature seminars; through its public policy briefs, ISSUES, Monographs; through interviews with notable personalities on current state of affairs and trends in the form of podcast recordings which is available in three languages, as well as the Penang Institute Chats; and through its renown magazine Penang Monthly. In times of crisis, Penang Institute will contribute to the management of such crises by publishing informed papers on the local situation and on how this relates to events and initiatives undertaken in other parts of the world.

More concretely, the Institute’s ambitions are the following:

• To contribute towards making public policy-making in Penang and in Malaysia as informed and collaborative as possible;
• To provide platforms for intellectual and professional exchanges on critical, current and strategic issues affecting Penang and its surrounding region;
• To promote interest in Penang’s cultural activities, and specifically in literary pursuits;
• To aid academic research in general through the maintenance of a resource centre.

For these purposes, the Institute is built around three research programmes (Socioeconomics & Statistics; Urban & Heritage Studies; History & Regional Studies), a publishing unit, an Executive Director’s office and a resource centre. Also attached to us are the Penang Education Council and PEKA – Youth Community Coordinator Programme. The Institute also functions as the Secretariat for the Dr Wu Lien-teh Society.