March 9th, 2015

Following some questions received from a number of EASN members regarding the currently open EU-China collaborative call, EASN tried to ensure that the call is as open and accessible as possible for the European Academia. After our intervention towards the EC, the following clarifications were  provided: 

"On Friday, 27/02/2015, Laurent Bochereau, Head of the Science, Technology and Environment Section of the EU-Delegation in Beijing met with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on the EU-China Coordinated Call 2015 in Aeronautics.

In this meeting MIIT confirmed that they will not favour any Chinese team and would not object against the selection of Chinese teams not having responded to the pre-screening. Thus, they fully commit to the bottom-up approach and encourage open competition in an open, fair and equitable way. Any intervention in the process of forming teams and applying to a Call would also go against the rules on MIIT side.

 As there was some confusion under aeronautics actors interested in this Call on both sides, China and Europe, please inform your colleagues about this position of MIIT.

For questions interested organisation may approach their National Contact Points (NCP), the Commission services or MIIT. MIIT and the Commission may help in a certain brokerage for partners, but will not intervene in any proposal preparation process.

Within Horizon 2020 proposals submitted to a Coordinated Call with a third country (e. g. China) need to include a final draft of a 'Collaboration Agreement'. A guideline document for the 'Collaboration Agreement' can be obtained from the Web-site of the Call."