Follow-ups after the SINCIERE Conference

Background

Our visit to China was successfully accomplished as planned, see program on the right . Our long term cooperation has been appreciated by our Chinese contacts and we agreed that it could serve as a solid base for possible future cooperation within areas of high priority both in China and in Norway. Our further cooperation should be based on a solid research platform between the Chinese and our research group.

We received valuable information which gave us a good platform for our continued work in defining new projects in cooperation with Chinese partners. Themes like instrumentation/standardization, data sharing and exchange of students/post docs/experts must be included. Cooperation in writing scientific papers and guide students may be included in future cooperation activities.

Prioritized areas for follow-ups should be based on two lines, air pollution issues and water management primarily based on multi/trans – disciplinary activities coupled to larger projects involving several partners. Contacts with institutes related to RCEES (Research Centre of Eco-Environmental Sciences/CAS), CRAES (Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences), Tsinghua and Peking University will be central in future cooperation. In addition in the follow-up phase contacts will involve Liu Qiang at National Centre for Climate Change and International Cooperation (NCDC/NDRC) and Institute of Atmospheric Physics, CAS (IAP).

Challenges

Follow-ups will require new  financial support from either RCN or EU/H 2020.

The environmental issues must be addressed by the international research community. Both China and Europe are meeting increasing challenges with need for industrial and agricultural modernization and modernized/renewed governance institutions. EUs Horizon 2020 represents a systematic approach to these issues. We are encouraged by RCN to increase our participation in H 2020. The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has from 2016 signed an agreement with EU to finance the Chinese participation in H 2020 (the first EU-China Co-funding Mechanism (CFM)). Thus a common Chinese-Norwegian approach towards H 2020 may seem appropriate in building alliances and networks of high international standards in Europe and in China .

Opportunities

Based on our potential Chinese partners previous contacts through EUs FP 7 as well as the Sectios earlier contacts in Europe, 6-8 potential partners in Europe have been identified and will be visited during spring 2016 .

Prioritized areas will be multi/trans – disciplinary activities on soil, water and air pollution issues. Three themes are selected as our starting points, to be further concretized and narrowed, in dialog with both the Chinese and the European partners;

1. Water resource management and climate change, including biogeochemistry, eutrophication and interaction between water and soil.

2. Study of complex atmospheric chemistry processes by utilizing advanced reaction chambers combined with novel instrumentation, field campaigns and impact studies.

3. Utilization and development of advanced online instruments and standardizations of methods for air pollution studies,

All these themes may find its place under priorities given of H2020 and CFM.

The Environmental Sciences Section will work on the follow-up issues during 2016.

This work has been supported by the Research Council of Norway.

Members of the delegation;