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The Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) announces €700,000 of funding from the EuropeAid budget of the European Delegation in Beijing to support a major new programme of extended research secondments in China. This will incude 20 positions of between 6 and 24 months for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers who are EU citizens. 

Applications are invited from aspiring young researchers who wish to carry out impactful research on crucial environmental challenges in China, which faces many of the major food and water security issues facing the world today.

The new project is called: ‘Addressingfood Security, Environmental stress and Water by promoting multidisciplinary Research EU And China Partnerships in science and business’ (or ‘SEW-REAP’). It aims to build research capacity in the EU to tackle key global challenges around food, agriculture, biotechnology and water, through deeply rooted person-to-person research collaborations and institutional connections with internationally-renowned groups in China.

Project organisation and purpose

The project will build upon strong established connections to construct an institutional platform, including personnel and capabilities, to support a new generation of profound, productive and multidisciplinary EU-China research collaborations. 
These longstanding connections are between the Lancaster Environment Centre and its Spanish partner, the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), and a series of Chinese partners: China Agricultural University, the State Key Laboratory for Agrobiotechnology in Shenzhen and the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Science (GIG-CAS). 
Successful applicants will be supported in the organisation of secondments by the International Research and Innovation Centre for the Environment (I-RICE,) LEC’s joint centre with GIG-CAS for international environmental research, based in Guangzhou, which will oversee the project.

The Chinese context

China is the world’s most populous nation and, in the quite recent past, food availability has been a serious national problem. While problems of food production have been substantially resolved in recent decades, the country faces numerous and intense environmental challenges for its future food security, including issues of water shortage, pollution, soil, overuse of fertilizer and changing environmental conditions and biodiversity. 

The geographical reach, social and natural intensity and global implications of these issues in China makes the country a crucible for the challenges of food and water security and their environmental aspects that face all societies in the 21^st century. 

China’s rapidly improving and often now world-leading science, not least in areas associated with these issues, makes collaboration with Chinese colleagues both an urgent imperative and a singular opportunity.

Applicant criteria, funding and supervision

The 20 positions on offer include: eight to spend 24 months in China; four to spend 12 months; and eight to spend six months. 

Applications are invited from excellent prospective and existing PhD students and postdoctoral researchers seeking to conduct research in China across the disciplines in the subject areas of food, agriculture, biotechnology and water. 

Successful applicants will conduct research in these fields under the joint supervision of colleagues from Lancaster and/or CSIC and a partner institution in China. 

They will also need to undertake lessons in Chinese language while in China to reach levels of proficiency in proportion to the duration of their stay

Successful applicants will receive a monthly stipend of approximately €2100 during their stay in China.  Of the 20 available positions, 13 will be hosted by LEC and seven will be hosted by CSIC, to which applicants should apply separately. 

Successful applicants for the 24-month secondments who are supervised by LEC will also be awarded LEC PhD student bursaries; CSIC students will be able to apply for a bursary on return to Spain for the completion of their studies.

The application process

Applicants for new PhDs should apply in the standard way for a PhD at LEC, but specifying prominently in their application that they are applying for a SEW-REAP studentship and the duration of their proposed secondment in China (24, 12 or 6 months).  Existing PhD students and postdoctoral researchers should contact David Tyfield directly (see below).

Applications for 24 and 12 months will be prioritised as the 6-month secondments are also available to existing LEC/CSIC staff.

Applicants should present compelling research plans, together with evidence of their potential for excellent research, and explain their specific interest in the long-term secondment in China and what they hope to achieve by being selected for this opportunity.

There is no closing date for this application process, but positions for each academic year will be filled on a first-come-first-served basis, with the first selection meeting for 2015 due to meet in mid-March.  The first cohort will start their secondments in autumn 2015.

For more information about SEW-REAP and these specific studentships, please contact Dr David Tyfield, Director of I-RICE d.tyfield@lancaster.ac.uk. For more information on PhD applications, please contact Andy Harrod, LEC Postgraduate Research (PGR) Co-ordinator on lec.pg@lancaster.ac.uk.