Harvard–Yenching Institute

The Harvard–Yenching Institute is an independent foundation dedicated to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences, with special attention to the study of Asian culture.The Harvard–Yenching Institute (HYI) was founded in 1928 by Yenching University President John Leighton Stuart with funding provided solely from the estate of Charles Martin Hall, the inventor of a process for refining aluminum and the founder of the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA).Although the institute has close ties with Harvard University, it is a legally and fiscally independent public charitable trust.Hall's charge to the trustees of his estate was to promote higher education in Asia, and to that end the trustees of his estate partnered with Harvard University in order to fulfill the Harvard–Yenching Institute's mission as stated in its Articles of Incorporation: to conduct and provide research, instruction and publication in the culture of China and/or elsewhere in Continental Asia and Japan and/or Turkey and the Balkan States in Europe, by founding, developing, supporting, maintaining and/or conducting one or more educational institutions and/or by supporting in whole or in part, co-operating with or joining or affiliating with other institutions now in existence or hereafter formed...[1]In the 1930s, the institute supported the development of what became the department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard and founded the Harvard-Yenching Library as well as the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.Since the 1950s, the institute's core activity has been to offer fellowships for overseas study and research to younger doctoral and post-doctoral scholars at leading East and Southeast Asian universities in all fields of the humanities and social sciences.