UK-China Bridge in Sustainable Energy and Built Environment

The Chinese 11th Five-Year Plan considers Sustainable Energy Supply and Sustainable Built Environment as crucial for achieving sustainable development. Recognising the potential benefits, the UK government has actively encouraged international collaborations with China. Two Engineering Schools at Queen's University Belfast (QUB), with internationally recognised research excellence in the Built Environment and in Electric Power & Control, have taken used these opportunities to collaborate with a number of, geographically distributed, leading Chinese universities, research institutions and industries. This effort has been supported by the EPSRC, the Royal Society & the Royal Academy of Engineering, and includes a 1M EPSRC grant for a UK-China joint consortium on sustainable electric power supply and a 220K EPSRC project to run UK-China Network of Clean Energy Research to promote SUPERGEN (Sustainable Power Generation and Supply) in China. Some QUB technologies have also been tested in major construction projects, such as the Beijing National Olympic Stadium (Bird's Nest) and the Hangzhou Bay Sea-Crossing Bridge (longest such bridge in the world). The applicants aim to enhance their science innovation and technology transfer activities in both China and the UK helped by their 7 university partners (principally Tsinghua University, # 1 in China & Zhejiang University, #3 in China, the others being Chongqing, Shanghai Jiaotong, Southeast, Shanghai and Hunan), 3 Chinese research institutions (Central Research Institute of Building & Construction CRIBC, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Electrical Engineering, and the Research Institute of Highways). The China State Railway Corp. (largest under Ministry of Railways), the China State Construction Corporation (largest under Ministry of Construction), Bao Steel Corporation (largest in China, #6 in world sales) and Shanghai Electric Group (largest in China) are the main 4 Chinese industrial partners. Complementary UK support includes Amphora NDT Ltd, Macrete and SUPERGEN.