Asia in Europe

The Asia-Europe Foundation ASEF ASEF is a non-profit intergovernmental organization based in Singapore whose primary mission is to promote understanding, relations, and cooperation among people, institutions, and organizations in Asia and Europe. ASEF develops projects and programs related to culture, education, governance, the economy, sustainable development, public health, and media. It is the only permanent institution of the process. Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM)It was created in February 1997 by the governments and organizations participating in ASEM, the main multilateral forum created a year earlier to facilitate political, economic and cultural cooperation between Asia and Europe, and to jointly address major global challenges.

Casa Asia has maintained a close collaborative relationship with ASEF since its inception. In 2019, as a local partner of ASEF, it organized three official programs that took place in Madrid on the occasion of the 14th meeting of ASEM Foreign Ministers: 3rd ASEM Cultural Festival, 9th ASEM Model, and 12th ASEF Journalists Seminar.

Casa Asia It hosted its 44th Board of Governors meeting in 2023, in collaboration with Barcelona and also with the University of Salamanca in the organization of 5th ASEF Young Summit Leaders Summit (ASEFYLS5) , and in 2025 the ASEF Linkup, Asia-Europe Culture Diplomacy Laband the round table Rethinking cultural diplomacy between Asia and Europe: a shared conversation.

The CEO of Casa Asia José Pintor Aguilar He is a Spanish governor and vice president of the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF).

This is a European Union project managed by Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) and the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) of the European Commission and implemented in cooperation with the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT). The main objective of the program is innovation cooperation between European regions and Japanese prefectures in the areas of green transition (circular economy, clean energy, climate change and sustainable mobility), industrial transformation (digitalization and social innovation), and demographic transition and competitiveness (public services and infrastructure in regions facing depopulation and aging). On the European side, the participating regions are Val d'Oise (France), Emilia-Romagna (Italy), País Vasco (Spain), Ljubjana (Slovenia), Auvergne Rhône Alpes (France) and Catalonia (Spain). Casa Asia, organized as part of the EU-Japan R2R team.

The Asia section of the International Urban Cooperation Program of the European Union (IUC-Asia) posted el EU-China Regional Innovation Joint Study, a study on regional innovation between the European Union (EU) and China, coordinated during 2020 from Casa Asia.

The study compares European and Chinese approaches to regional innovation, also analyzing six case studies from regions and provinces in China and the EU: País Vasco (Spain), Baden-Württemberg (Germany), Centro (Portugal), Jiangsu, Shandong and Chengdu-Chongqing (China).

Thus, while in Europe the leadership of the regions predominates in the design of the different innovation strategies through smart specialization policies (RIS3), in the Chinese case the impact of the central government is much more pronounced, although the provinces and cities have an increasingly important role in the development of their own strategies adapted to the characteristics of each place. The importance of the so-called triple helix (cooperation between the government, universities and companies) for the success of any innovation plan at the regional or provincial level, both in China and Europe, has also been confirmed.