Author: Philipp Brugner

ReConnect China took part in the first China cluster meeting organised by the EC

ReConnect China delivering inputs to the EU-KNOC 2.0 Core Group and the 1st China Cluster Meeting in Brussels

On February 27, ReConnect China was invited to participate in two China-related meetings organised by the European Commission in Brussels. In the morning, Bart Dessein, coordinator of ReConnect China, and Philipp Brugner, task leader on EU-China STI cooperation, presented updates from the project during the EU-KNOC 2.0 CCG Meeting (EU-Knowledge Network on China Core Group Meeting). The EU-KNOC 2.0 initiative brings together several European partners aiming to support the EC and EU Member States in their strategic approach to R&I cooperation with China. Its work builds on the results delivered by EU-KNOC 1.0, which was implemented between July 2020 and October 2021.

The meeting was organised by the Directorate General for Research, Technology and Development (DG RTD) and gave ample space to both current Horizon Europe projects dealing with China (DWARC and ReConnect China) to present about their activities, including research, policy advice and public engagement work.

At the end, an open floor discussion between the experts from both projects, the EU-KNOC 2.0 Core China Group Delegates, the Science Counsellors of the EU MS (which were connected online from Bejing) and representatives from the EC and the EEAS brought several interesting questions in regard to upgrading independent knowledge on China in Europe to the table. Science Counsellors of EU MS were mainly interested to learn how DWARC and ReConnect China may be able to complement the work done by EU-KNOC 2.0.

The 1st China Cluster Meeting: Exploring synergies between EU-funded research on China

In the afternoon, the consortium members of DWARC and ReConnect China moved over to the premises of Bruegel, a partner in DWARC. There, again at the request of DG RTD, the so called “China Cluster Meeting” took place. The format’s birth can be understood against the EC’s will for more research harmonisation and joint agenda setting across Europe’s fragmented research (and policy advice) landscape on China. With ReConnect China and DWARC the EC now has two recently started project at hand, which may help to steer this process in the near and more distant future (ReConnect China runs until 2026 and DWARC until 2025).

In this vein, the 1st China cluster meeting provided an informal setting to explore and already concretise answers to the following questions:

  • In which fields of research and the drafting of policy recommendations can ReConnect China and DWARC cooperate most effectively in the next three years?
  • How to support the two projects in developing a shared public recognition as the EU’s research cluster on China?
  • How to draw those China experts (individuals and institutions) closer to the work of the China cluster who are not members of the two projects?

At the meeting, ReConnect China was represented by Bart Dessein and Huanyu Zhao from University of Ghent (coordinators), Astrid Pepermans and Victor De Decker from Egmont Institute (WP4 leader), Xiaoxue Martin from Clingendael (WP5 leader) and Philipp Brugner from ZSI (WP6 leader). In addition, our colleagues Christian Göbel (University of Vienna, WP3 leader) and Roger Greatrex with Diego Mathias (CCCM, WP2 leader) joined online.

Read the meeting agenda

The ReConnect China project kicked off!

The team behind ReConnect China met in Ghent to start the project

ReConnect China is funded under Horizon Europe and coordinated by the University Ghent in Belgium (Prof. Bart Dessein and his team).  It aims to answer the question in which domains collaboration of the EU with China is desirable, possible or impossible. Against this backdrop, the following fields have been chosen for analysis: Science & Technology, Economy & Trade, Domestic Governance, and Foreign Policy. Moreover, a database which will provide access to new sources of information will be developed and experts on China will be gathered under a new European umbrella forum called “Europe-China Knowledge Forum”.

The project will run until October 2026 and has a financial volume of about 4m€.

From November 24-25 the team of 15 partners met in Ghent to start in its research agenda and to further define the work to be carried over the next four years. According to the words of Gaia Airulo, who represented the EC at the kick-off meeting, “the project has only increased in importance since the launch of this call given the most recent developments in China and between China and the EU”. For this reason and in order to create synergies where possible, ReConnect China is supposed to cooperate closely with its sister project DWARC funded under the same call (a first synergy meeting between the two projects took place on February 27 in Brussels).

The ReConnect China consortium brings together 15 partners from across Europe: Six universities (University of Ghent, University of Tartu, University of Turku, University of Groningen, University of Vienna and University of Olomouc), six think tanks (Egmont Institute, Clingendael Institute, Istituto Affari Internazionali, French Institute of International Relations, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Elcano Royal Institute), one research institute (ZSI), one state agency (Innovation Norway) and one public institute under governmental administration (Macau Scientific and Cultural Centre).

ReConnect China has the following six objectives:

  1. Providing an independent understanding of China and its overall defining social, cultural, political and economic characteristics
  2. Identifying the EU’s own needs and strengths within new global narratives on China
  3. Developing a database of online public sources which enables day-to-day insights into policies, narratives, and public discourses in China
  4. Mainstreaming knowledge on China within the EU and creating new connections and synergies between intra-European China knowledge nodes
  5. Improving the European capacity to bring forward coherent and fact-based policy-making
  6. Enhancing the visibility of our independent expertise and making it available to external actors

These six objectives are pursued within our six thematic work packages.

Moreover, find more details on the EU’s financial contribution and on the background of partners on the CORDIS portal.