Qingdao meeting discusses Jiaozhou Bay research funding opportunities, 29 April 2013 

Research needs, policy and management challenges were discussed in a meeting on the 29th April 2013 with Qingdao's former Vice Mayor Wang Xiulin (an active Jiaozhou Bay, Qingdao, China research and community leader). UNSW SARCCM Director A/Prof. Hua Wang, A/Prof. Stuart Pearson and PhD student Shengnan Chen from PEMS/SARCCM attended the meeting. The meeting was informed that Ocean University of China (OUC) is taking research of Jiaozhou Bay seriously under OUC's Vice President (Research) Prof. Ju Yan's leadership. Prof. Ju Yan visited SARCCM at UNSW Canberra on 27 November 2012. OUC is currently offering SARCCM some seeding funding for Jiaozhou Bay integrated research. This funding will partially fund a proposed UNSW/OUC Workshop in October 2013. This workshop will include a special session on Jiaozhou Bay together with other sessions such as Oceanography, Climate Science, Marine Bio-Innovation, and Law of the Sea. The group will aim to produce a special issue out of the workshop papers. Next year is OUC's 70th anniversary. The OUC Senior Vice President Prof. Yifa Yu has further proposed a higher level UNSW/OUC Symposium in Sept/Oct 2014 to celebrate the occasion. The ultimate objective from these workshop activities is to consolidate and expand the UNSW/OUC research collaboration in marine sciences. This will prepare researchers for joint applications for a major China State Oceanic Administration (SOA) or China Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) grant to support coastal research, and the matching of funding to several UNSW SARCCM grant applications currently under review by respective funding agencies.