As a regional organization, ASEAN has shown its significant roles in terms of maintaining regional stability and enhancing free-market economic cooperation along with the development of regionalism in Southeast Asia. Indeed, those achievements has made ASEAN as one of the few prestigious and credible regional organizations in Asia for more than forty years. However, nowadays ASEAN still has to face several obstacles, such as the huge gap between elite and mass perceptions toward ASEAN itself, and growing concern over ASEAN’s capability in fostering regional security in the future, especially along with the rising tension in the South China Sea. Therefore, Gadjah Mada University in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Republic of Indonesia, establish the ASEAN Studies Center, as an academic institution that is responsible for critical and objective review, as well as institutional arrangements in enhancing the role of ASEAN–i.e. including the three pillars of economic, political, and security–for the benefit of the development of Indonesian science and policy, and the wider community. Specifically, ASEAN Studies Center Universitas Gadjah Mada is a multi diciplinary study center, established in line with Tri Dharma Principles which comprises of three areas of Teaching, Research and Community Service especially related to the field of ASEAN Studies.