It was founded in 1994 by universities from Austria, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam with the goal of promoting the continuous internationalisation of education and research.

In 1992 the Universities of Innsbruck, Chulalongkorn, Vienna and Chiang Mai signed a joined partnership agreement to include one another in their cooperations.

In order to achieve ASEA UNINET's common goals and objectives financing is sought by all member institutions from university and national government sources.

[6] The current focus areas of cooperation include: In 1994 this network consisted of 25 universities from Austria, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.

In the following years, many universities from the following countries have joined the network: Kingdom of Cambodia, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain.