The TRANSFUSE Association is a continuation of the TRANSFUSE Program that was run from May 1998 to December 2000 by the Aspen Institute Berlin with generous support from high-profile inter-national foundations and multilateral institutions. In extending and enhancing the Aspen Institute’s previous programs in Southeastern Europe, TRANSFUSE pursued two aims: the creation of an endur-ing network among its 33 participants, and the development of projects, designed by ’TRANSFUSErs’ and implemented in cooperation with partner organisations. Over a period of 15 months, TRANSFUSE convened three thematic workshops, in Berlin (‘Media’), Washington, D.C. (‘Civil Society’), and Brus-sels (‘Security’). The selected topics reflected areas of critical importance to democratic, pluralistic development in Southeastern Europe. Concrete project concepts in each field were readied for imple-mentation during the concluding conference in Croatia in October 2000. The TRANSFUSE Program was made possible by generous support from

• The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
• The Robert Bosch Foundation
• USAID
• The German Marshall Fund of the United States
• The Council of Europe
• NATO
• OSCE
• The American Embassy in Berlin.

The project was supported by an international Advisory Board including Morton Abramowitz, Carl Bildt, Bronislaw Geremek, Hans Koschnick, Sonja Licht, William Nash, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, Lord Roper, Theo Sommer and Leo Tindemans.
In October 2001, the TRANSFUSE participants decided to establish the TRANSFUSE Association as an independent organisation to oversee implementation of the developed projects and to serve as an institutional framework for the group’s future activities.