Prof. Na Gan-chae (Dept. of Sociology) started his new position as President of the Korean Association of Regional Studies (KARS). The tenure of office of the president of the KARS is one year. The Korean Association of Regional Studies is a learned society interested in regional development, policy and research. Established in 1988, the KARS is led by humanities and social studies scholars working in local provinces such as Honam, Youngnam, and Chungchung. The members of the Jeonnam Social Studies Association (Gwangju), the Honam Social Studies Association (Jeonbuk), Regional Studies Center (Pusan), the Daegu Social Studies Association (Daegu), and the Daejon-Chungnam Social Studies Associations are actively working for the KARS while conducting independent and interdisciplinary research activities concerned with analysis of regions and regional issues. In 1990’s, the KARS focused on the studies of regional conflicts in Korea. Since 2000, the major study fields of the KARS have included the issues of over-centralization and local community devastation. Prof. Na said, “Through academic approaches to regional problems in Korea, we will make our utmost efforts to make the KARS contribute to the decentralization and national balanced development.” The KARS held a regular meeting at the end of last month, where members reported their research articles on regional innovation and decentralization in order to assess and review the strategies for decentralization movement.