Asia-Europe Connectivity

Measuring sustainable connectivity between Europe and Asia

I co-led a major multi-year project to support the European Commission’s External Action Service in measuring international links between Asian and European countries. The work supported the high-level Asia-Europe Meeting in which heads of state of Asian and European countries meet to explore how to better connect on issues such as trade, education, research, defense and global issues such as climate change and health.

The work involved:

• Extensive client consultation
• Organising two international workshops with topical experts from Asia and Europe
• Collecting and cleaning extensive amounts of data
• Statistical and multivariate analysis
• Meeting client needs while respecting technical rigour and practical considerations
• Writing and publication of a flagship report
• Designing an interactive data exploration platform
• Presenting work to senior stakeholders (up to ministerial level)
• Navigating a sensitive political environment and respecting cultural differences

To find out more about this work, see the ASEM Sustainable Connectivity Portal.

The work also resulted in a spin-off international research conference (AESCON), which I co-founded and co-organised.

See also our academic paper on this topic.