In response to the call for greater Asia-Europe intellectual exchange and cooperation that was made at the first ASEM summit in March 1996, twelve leading research institutes from both regions agreed to form the Council for Asia-Europe Cooperation (CAEC). Launched in May 1996, the CAEC represents the culmination of a long-standing process of cooperation between Asian and European research institutes.

The main purpose of CAEC is to encourage and facilitate greater cooperation among Asian and European intellectuals and policy specialists in order to enhance discussions about the future direction of Asia-Europe relations. CAEC is intended to be flexible and non-exclusive. It is managed by an steering committee composed of representatives from about a dozen major research institutes in Asia and Europe (see Steering Committee). Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) located in Tokyo serves as the Asian secretariat of CAEC; Tadashi Yamamoto has served since CAEC's inception as co-ordinator on the Asian side. Gerald Segal at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London served as European co-ordinator, and the IISS as the European secretariat. Gerald Segal's tragic and premature death left a gap which Hanns Maull from Trier University now tries to fill. He took over as European co-ordinator in the fall of 2000. The European secretariat is thus now located with the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at the University of Trier in Germany.

The first CAEC Plenary Meeting took place in Paris in November 1996. The conclusions of the meeting were published under the title Asia-Europe: "Strengthening the Informal Dialogue".

In anticipation of the May 1998 ASEM summit in London, the CAEC initiated two task forces. The first, coordinated by Simon Nuttall, Hadi Soesastro, and Carolina Hernandez, resulted in the report "The Rationale and Common Agenda for Asia-Europe Cooperation". The second task force, under the guidance of Gerald Segal and Tadashi Yamamoto, produced "An Inventory of Research on Asia-Europe Relations". Both reports were presented and discussed at the November 1997 CAEC conference organized in Tokyo. The findings and recommendations of both task forces became the focal point of several specially convened conferences in Ditchley Park and Tokyo; they were also widely disseminated among scholars, journalists and government officials in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America in advance of , and during, the London ASEM Summit in 1998.

In March 1998, CAEC started the second set of activities geared toward the Third ASEM summit in Seoul 2000. At the core of these avtivities stood three task forces: "Strengthening International Order - The Role of Asia-Europe Cooperation" (Han Sung-joo, Joachim Krause and Jusuf Wanandi, co-coordinators); "Asia-Europe Cooperation: Beyond the Financial Crisis" (Chia Siow Yue and Francois Godement, co-coordinators); "Population, Food, Energy, and the Environment: Challenges to Asia-Europe Cooperation" (Gill Wilkins and Carolina Hernandez, co-coordinators). The task force reports were completed well before the Seoul 2000 ASEM III Summit and displayed as books in the ASEM Convention Hall during the summit. Various steering committee members were requested by politicians and ASEM officials from their regions to present the reports and their findings.

For the two next years, CAEC has decided to focus its energy on three bi-regional working groups which will deal with the following themes: 1) Social Policies, 2) Migration, and 3) Peace Building. In 2001, the working groups will convene in workshop-sessions to exchange and discuss their initial findings and policy recommendations. In spring 2002, a CAEC Plenary Conference will be held in Europe. At this occasion, the working groups will draw their final conclusions which are to be presented as policy recommendations for ASEM IV (which will take place in the fall of 2002 in Copenhagen).