Thai Studies, a branch of Asian studies, is an intellectual category used by research universities around the world as a way of bringing together specialists from different disciplines such as history, anthropology, religious studies, political science, Thai language, Thai literature, and musicology who are doing research in these areas in the country of Thailand.
The term sometimes includes research on Tai ethnic groups living outside of Thailand such as the Shan or Tai Lu of Xishuangbanna Prefecture in Yunnan, China as well as ethnic groups such as the Mon who have long inhabited the area of modern-day Thailand.
Probably the first organisation to actively sponsor and promote Thai Studies was the Siam Society under royal patronage, established in 1904. The Siam Society and the affiliated Siamese Heritage Protection Trust maintain an extensive library of Thai studies materials and exhibits.
The Journal of the Siam Society (JSS) is a peer-reviewed academic journal. Open access to PDF digital productions of all issues back to 1904 is available on line.
Currently, the Center for Thai Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand is a thriving center for Thai Studies. The Thailand Information Center (TIC) at Chulalongkorn's main library is a central repository of research materials for Thai Studies.
Cornell University was the first active center for Thai Studies in the United States. In 1947, Lauriston Sharp began the Cornell-Thailand Project, a ground-breaking initiative to collate baseline data in a comprehensive study of what was the a farming village on the outskirts of Bangkok, now Tambon Bang Chan (Thai: บางชัน) in Bangkok's district of Khlong Sam Wa (คลองสามวา). Highly acclaimed historian David K. Wyatt was also a professor at Cornell from 1969 until he retired in 2002.
Outside Thailand, a group of young, active academics at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University) has been promoting Thai Studies as a significant research discipline in social studies. The International Journal of Studies in Thai Business, Society & Culture, the inaugural open-access Thai Studies Journal, was launched at RMIT University in 2011. RMIT University also hosts three Thai studies conference in 2001, 2011 and 2014.