Issue 1, January 2012

Welcome to the first issue of the EU-China Environmental Research Collaboration Network newsletter. The SPRING project is funded by the EU to create and provide a solid basis for future EU-China collaboration in environmental research. The Project Coordinator is Professor Soon-Thiam Khu at the University of Surrey. The project has ten partners from the UK, Norway, Bulgaria and China.

The SPRING project identifies common needs and opportunities, analyses potential topics of research cooperation and initiatives, maps the competences and potential of Chinese research organisations and major infrastructure, investigates strategic development plans and initiates roadmaps for future collaborations. It also analyses the hurdles, barriers, and cornerstones that need to be addressed to enable better research engagement by EU researchers in China, and vice versa. The project aims to improve the visibility of the research initiatives and strengths of Chinese regions to a wider audience in Europe.

More information about the project is available online.  We welcome you to join our website to view academic resources, participate in the Discussion Forum and attend the workshops and conferences we organise. We look forward to meeting you.

Lu Yang (project officer)

Key Technologies in the Environment Domain Survey

We would like to have your valuable contribution to an online survey on Key Technologies in the Environmental Domain, administered by the Applied Research and Communication Fund, Bulgaria, within the Scoping China’s Research Excellence and Major Infrastructure: Foresight, Potentials and Roadmaps project (SPRING, http://www.springproject.eu).

As a prominent expert in your field, your candid and thoughtful responses to this survey will be highly appreciated, and will help complete a bi-regional review of 50 key technologies, as well as their possible applications and impact over the next 20 years.

The survey consists of five sections, each covering one of the following major themes: Climate Change, Water Environment, Biodiversity Conservation, Soil Environment, and Atmospheric Environment. For each of these, a specific list of key technologies was identified by a panel of experts during an international key technologies workshop, held in Beijing, China, in July 2011. You are offered the opportunity to assess each such technology’s prospective application and impact on the overallenvironmental sustainability, both for your own country, as well as globally, within at least one of those themes. However, we encourage you to give a response for as many themes as possible that correspond to your expertise, in order to provide our consortium with a solid base for conclusions and future policy recommendations.

Please bear in mind that the description of the technologies in each of the five environmental categories of the survey has been repeated in every question which might at first sight leave the impression that the questionnaire is very long. This repetition of the technologies’ definitions on the vertical axis (of each question) was done on purpose for the sake of clarity and should be disregarded in case you are familiar with them. The actual survey questions are presented by the text on the horizontal axis of the screen.

SPRING aims to address the environmental implications of China’s remarkable economic development and Europe’s environmental challenges through collaboration and knowledge sharing between European and Chinese researchers in order to develop strategies, a roadmap, and a vision for ensuring the long-term viability of the Chinese and European economies. This will be done by highlighting areas where environmental impacts resulting from economic growth can be minimized and/or reversed by shifting current production and consumption trends. The project  is supported by the European Union, through its Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. It is coordinated by the University of Surrey, UK.

The survey will be active between December 26^th, 2011 and February 15^th 2012, and is accessible online at http://springproject.eu/en/research

It will take you no more than 20 minutes to answer all questions within a theme. Optionally, you may save your responses intermittently, and return to submitting the survey at a later time.

No personally identifiable information will be collected by the survey, and you may be ensured of complete confidentiality and anonymity of your responses. Should you have any questions regarding this survey or the SPRING project, please do not hesitate to contact Ms Zoya Damianova, Programme Director at ARC Fund, Ms Adriana Dimova, Project Officer at ARC Fund, or Ms Zhou Yun, Director International Cooperation Centre at the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences.

Cordially yours,

SPRING Project Consortium

EU-China Environmental Research Discussion Forum

Sign up and have your say!

In SPRING, we think that "communication and dialogue" is the key to removing barriers and unlocking the potential for collaboration. The Discussion Forum will help to enable and enhance communication and dialogue between EU and China researchers.

Success Scenario Workshop

Dates: 30 - 31 March 2012

Location: InterContinental Hotel, ChongQing, China

Following the successful first workshop, held in April 2011, a second workshop has been arranged.

The overall objective of the workshop is to develop a total of five success scenarios, i.e. one scenario within each of the five environmental domains - climate change, water environment, atmospheric environment, biodiversity conservation and soil environment and then, based on these success scenarios, to identify and list areas and priorities of common interest for future EU-China research collaboration in the environmental domain.

The success scenario workshop aims to bring together at least 30 environmental experts from China and Europe, who will discuss theenvironmental dynamics in a global context in order to produce five success scenarios and a list of joint priorities in environmental research.

Scenario analysis is used worldwide in support of environmental policy developments. Scenarios are not forecasts, but as a 'history of the future' they offer a valuable framework for thinking systematically about processes of change. The development of scenarios will allow for a better understanding of environmental dynamics in a global context, which in turn will support policy formulation and decision-making processes at the EU and China levels.

A report of the findings will be made available after the workshop.