According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, the joint fund of Silk Road (SRSF) will support the joint research activities between Iranian researchers and scholars of Chinese academy of science (CAS) in six scientific fields for the third year. These scientific fields include nanotechnology, renewable energies, cognitive sciences, advanced materials, water sciences and medical engineering.

According to this report, three types of support of joint research and development projects, holding joint workshop and exchange of researchers in short-term courses will be carried out within the framework of the call.

Joint Research and Development Projects

This foundation will approximately support six research projects. Iranian researchers can register for the support during April 18^th-May 31^st, 2018 by sending their joint proposals to the national science foundation. However, all of the proposals must be presented separately and at the same time to the national science foundation (by Iranian researchers) and CAS (by Chinese researchers). Requests sent from just one side will not be evaluated. In addition, researchers must select only one of the mentioned fields for their proposal, and those suggested projects which can be performed in Iran without the cooperation of China will not be prioritized for support.

The main Iranian researcher must be a faculty member of an Iranian university or research center, whereas the main Chinese researcher must be from one of the universities and research centers affiliated to CAS. It should be noted that CAS is responsible for finding Chinese researchers during the announced time. Researchers, whose proposals were approved last year within the framework of SRSF, are not allowed to send a proposal to the foundation. In addition, the maximum time of projects is three years and the project will be initiated in the beginning of 2019. Moreover, the SRSF will support a maximum of three workshops. This workshop can only be held in China or Iran.

Researcher Exchange Program

Exchange of researcher includes visiting one or several institutes and universities affiliated to CAS by an Iranian researcher during one week. The foundation will support a maximum of 24 exchanges. Sending request for exchange of researcher by Iranian researchers is only carried out by the national science foundation, and joint requests are not necessitated in this regard. In addition, Iranian applicants must prepare invitations from the desired institutes for visitation and upload is on the research system of the foundation. The exchange will occur in 2019. For more information, please refer to the website of the foundation.