BELSPO - bilateral research cooperation with China

Research

Funding organisation:

POD Wetenschapsbeleid

What?

This call aims to contribute to scientific advancement in Belgium and China and gather expertise from the concerned countries leading to innovative solutions and/or opening new research perspectives. The aimed research should be impact-oriented and of societal relevance.

Area of cooperation:

• Biodiversity: research is focused on Nature-based solutions (NbS). This type of research is solution-oriented and relevant to society.
• Climate Change: research is focused on "Co-designing climate services with stakeholders”. Climate services are defined as user-driven development, translation and transfer of climate knowledge from science to policy and decision-making (practitioners) to support climate action. Proposals have to include engagement and communication strategies with stakeholders for the period of the project and in the longer term.

Pluri-trans-multidisciplinarity: Within the framework of this call the intention is to combine or intersect the scientific approaches, where relevant, around the same research object. This implies that teams that form a trans-multi-disciplinary network are in particularly recommended.
The scientific networks can consist of several research institutions (federal scientific institutes, universities, colleges, public research centers, non-profit organisations with the pursuit of scientific research stipulated in their statutes).

The funding of the joint research projects is based on the principle of reciprocity. Each country finances the costs for activities carried out on its own territory: personnel costs, working costs (including field missions) and, if needed, subcontracting, whereas the international travel costs are borne by the respective sending country.

The budget available for this call is:
• From BELSPO: 250 000 euro. The maximum budget per proposal to be granted is 130 000 euro.
• From MOST: 3 million RMB. The maximum budget per proposal to be granted is 2 million RMB

Expected start of the projects: December 2023
Project duration: between 2,5 and 3 years

Who?

From the Belgian side: the call is addressed to Belgian universities, public scientific institutions, university colleges and non-profit research institutions.
The participation of Federal Scientific Institutions is encouraged. For equal scientific quality of submitted proposals, the preference will be given to consortia with participation of Federal Scientific Institutions. List of Federal Scientific institutions: see annex I in the submission dossier.

From the Chinese side: the call is open to the legal entities based in China, including universities and research institutes. Further details can be found in the Chinese call published on the website of MOST (https://service.most.gov.cn). See Annex III for MOST National Eligibility Criteria for further details.

Application?

Parallel submission.

Applications must be submitted to BELSPO (by the Belgian coordinator) and to MOST (by the Chinese coordinator) via the Application Form.
• The Application Form is submitted, at Belgian side, by e-mail (in 'Word' and in 'pdf', with signatures).
• The Application Form is submitted, at Chinese side, through the submission platform (further details can be found in the call published on the website of MOST).

Deadline for submission: 14 September 2023 at 3 p.m. CET. in Belgium and around mid September in China

Regulations?

Guidelines of the call

More information?

You can find more information on the BELSPO website.

Please contact research@uhasselt.be if you want to apply.

Deadline

14.09.2023

Contact Hasselt University?

E-mail sarah.szyr@uhasselt.be

Tel. +3211269052