Introduction

The foundation of the European Science Foundation (ESF) Asia Committee in 1994 can be seen as marking the beginning of the intensification of institutional co-operation in Europe. The Committee has set itself three main goals. The first of these is to reinforce Asian Studies by setting up an ESF fellowship programme, which has so far been supported by the governments of France, the Scandinavian countries, and the Netherlands. The second goal on which the ESF Asia Committee has set its sights is the organization of international scholarly meetings to increase mobility and co-operation among Asia scholars. So far thirty meetings of this kind have been organized, pertinently generating new impulses for Asian Studies in Europe. The third goal identified by the Committee as necessary to the achievement of its purpose was to create a European Database for Asian Studies (EDAS), which should initially help to identify the quantative spread of Asian Studies in Europe and later their professional content.