What we do

We work with government departments in the UK and their counterparts in China to help them include - and get the best out of - research cooperation in their bilateral links and programmes dealing with key global challenges, such as those of climate change, infectious disease and sustainable development.

We work also with key research organisations and funding bodies in the UK and China to explore ways in which they can collaborate more effectively. We facilitate missions, workshops, seminars and other activities to bring these communities together.

We have an expanding interest in enabling the UK and China to get the best from each other through cooperation on innovation practice and policy.

We are delighted to list as a key outcome of our work over the past two years the decision by the UK’s Research Councils to establish their first overseas office in Beijing.

What we are working on

Our Science and Innovation teams are working with UK and Chinese partners on activities that include:

In Beijing:

• Facilitating UK involvement in a major clinical trial in China of a prototype H5N1 vaccine
• Facilitating space science links including a virtual UK/China space lab and a joint project to design a lunar rover
• Establishing UK/China partnerships for a major programme of joint energy research
• Establishing Chinese participation in a substantial joint knowledge-transfer programme called Innovation China UK

In Shanghai:

• Delivering a major joint study of China's flood and coastal defence needs
• Building UK/China polar research collaboration
• Delivering venture capital and climate change seminars in partnership with local government
• Facilitating nanoscience, bioscience  and synchrotron science collaboration
• Establishing a stem cell neuro-degenerative disease vitual laboratory   

In Guangzhou:

• Facilitating joint research and exchange on clean and renewable energy
• Joint projects to assess the impact of climate change on
  • The Panda’s natural habitat
  • Ocean acidification
  • Heatwave-related deaths
• Facilitating a project on marine pollution monitoring
• Facilitating joint research on biodiversity and plant conservation

In Chongqing:

• Establishing a UK/China Materials Network with sub-networks on biomaterials, energy materials and nanomaterials
• Facilitating collaborations in biorenewable energy, advanced materials and drug delivery
• Establishing a UK/China traditional Chinese medicine consortium
• Creating a step-change in UK-Southwest China science relations

What we want to achieve in future

We intend to continue working with our partners to identify new and exciting ways in which the science/research communities and governments of our countries can get the best out of research cooperation.

The UK sees China as a key partner. We will continue to build research and policy partnerships based on the same principles of equality, transparency and reciprocity that govern our collaborations with other major science nations. We want to see ideas and funds flowing in to UK/China collaborations at both ends - and benefits flowing out at both ends that make a real difference.