Advances in Urban Water Systems Research / UK China Link

A group of established researchers from Centre for Water Systems, University of Exeter, would like to propose visiting 4 top research groups in China to exchange ideas on how to improve our (UK and China) urban water systems.A key challenge in the Chinese water industry is the lack of consistently high standard of research output to provide the necessary guidance, despite the political will power and large base of well-trained engineers. In this respect, there is a lot that the UK can potentially offer, but some form of common understanding of each other's needs must be first and foremost firmly established. In return, the Chinese water market offers UK research community tremendous opportunity to extend their research findings via practical implementation. It also allows various schemes to be monitored and refined, hence enhancing the quality of UK's research. The EPSRC INTERACT scheme is an excellent mechanism to enable us, the Centre for Water Systems, to perform large scale testing of our research outputs as well as refining them.This proposal is very timely and focuses on forming strong UK-China academic partnership. It builds on the strength of the Centre for Water Systems (as a showcase of leading UK research) and research needs of China's rapidly expanding urban infrastructure.