Julie Gilson, author of the ASEM study, is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. She is the author of Asia Meets Europe (Edward Elgar, 2002) and co-editor of The European Union and East Asia: Inter-Regional Linkages in a Changing Global System (Edward Elgar, 2001) as well as other articles and chapters on the ASEM process, including civil society engagement thereof. In 2005 she began a research project to examine the role of NGOs in Southeast Asia, particularly in relation to areas affected by a legacy of landmines.