The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) have granted two joint research projects on “Green Cities” early this week. 

The two projects, focusing on better integrating green areas into a city, will transform research results to urban planning and help provide more scientific basis for sustainable development of cities. 

CAS Vice President HOU Jianguo signed a renewal agreement on bilateral joint research projects with NWO President Stan Gielen last November. 

As the first call of the renewed agreement between the two sides, the "Green Cities" call focuses on application-oriented solutions to better integrate green areas in the city landscapes, to help develop practical innovations, and support decisions and policymakers towards sustainable planning and practices, strategies and policies. 

One project, “Autonomously Adaptive Window Foils for Smart Buildings and Green Cities”, is awarded to a Sino-Dutch consortium consisting of two research groups at CAS Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Delft University of Technology, and ClimAd Technology. This project aims at the development of window foils, which autonomously regulate a comfortable daylight illumination and temperature inside a building in response to the outdoor weather conditions. 

The other project, “Multi-functional urban Green space planning based on transdisciplinary learning”, is given to a consortium consisting of CAS Institute of Urban Environment, CAS Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Leiden University, Wageningen University and Research, and municipalities of Breda and Nieuwegein. It focuses on developing an integrated modelling tool to support the planning of Green infrastructures and to evaluate the multiple benefits of their implementation. 

The two sides have been working together in the Cooperation China-The Netherlands program and financing joint researches since 2009.  

Collaborations between the two sides range from “Stem Cell Research”, “The Future of Brain & Cognition”, “Radio Astronomy”, to “Green Cities” this time, and will expand to other areas of mutual interest in the future. 

CAS and NWO have funded more than fifty joint research projects in total under all the Sino-Dutch programs.