Editors' Notes on Themed Issue on Civil Society Education: East Asia

Abstract

This is the fourth themed issue in the Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership (JNEL) in which researchers around the world examine regional and national training and education programs for individuals with civil society leadership roles. The issue has its origin in a post-conference airport meeting a few years ago between one of the editors of this series of themed issues and a set of prominent scholars from East Asia. As most researchers would confirm, the value of a research conference is seldom found in the various seminars or panels, but rather in the unplanned encounters that take place at breakfast, over a coffee, or—in this case—at the airport. The mere airport happenstance turned out to be the beginning of several valuable research initiatives. Since then, among other things, the authors and the editors have met and organized public disseminations, including the Nonprofit Higher Education Research Summit at he ISTR International Conference in 2021. The overall result is not only a significant contribution to the series of themed issues, but also, and more importantly, the first mapping of programs in nonprofit and nongovernmental management education in East Asia.