Mission Statement

The mission of the PIRE-ECCI program is to train globally-aware scientists with excellent technical skills, the ability to collaborate effectively across national boundaries, and a network of international contacts on which to build their research careers. The PIRE-ECCI partnership between UCSB and researchers in China reflects our recognition of China’s vast human resources and rapidly accelerating investment in research personnel and infrastructure. China will play a dominant role in future chemical/energy research and technical innovation, which are areas of interest to both our countries.

We believe that cooperation between US and Chinese scientists is best promoted by mutual understanding of our common goals, based on extended personal interactions. The PIRE-ECCI aims to give young American chemists and chemical engineers the opportunity to experience living, working and conducting research in China, while collaborating with internationally-renowned researchers in some of the country’s best laboratories. The extended research visits (XRVs) of the American graduate students allow them to acquire skills to interact with and relate to Chinese scientists on a professional and personal level, while making progress on their thesis projects. They have the satisfaction of contributing to breakthrough science under the combined direction of researchers from opposite sides of the globe.

• To conduct collaborative research projects in heterogeneous catalysis and surface science, that benefit from the combined expertise and access to equipment of renowned investigators from the US and China;
• To produce research results that are widely-recognized as both fundamentally significant and with the potential to impact energy conversion;
• To give US faculty and students a broad sense of the opportunities presented by international collaboration, and the confidence to pursue them;
• To provide US graduate students and other early career researchers with opportunities to spend extended periods (several weeks to months) working on collaborative projects while living in China and being immersed in Chinese culture;
• To provide all PIRE-ECCI participants with personal contacts and a network of professional relationships in China; and
• To establish a replicable model for sustained international research and education partnerships between US institutions of higher education and their counterparts in China.