Burma studies is a grouping used in research universities around the world as a way of bringing together specialists from different disciplines such as history, cultural anthropology, archeology, religious studies, art history, political science, and musicology, who are doing research in these areas focused on the geographical area of what is today the country of Burma or Myanmar, often using the Burmese language, or a language of one of its ethnic groups such as the Shan, Mon, Karen, Chin, or Kachin.
The Myanmar Historical Commission which was established in 1955 regularly publishes a journal and holds conferences in Burma.
Its current director is Dr. Catherine Raymond, Associate Professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University.
Specialists in the Burmese language and literature included the scholars Hla Pe, John Okell, Anna Allot and in the history of Burma the historian D.G.E.
Many current specialists in Burma and its languages and ethnic groups received their doctorates at SOAS such as the historians Victor B. Lieberman and the Mon linguist Christian Bauer.