TEHRAN – Following the tenth joint call, the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) and the Silk Road Joint Science Fund (SRSF), in cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), will support the implementation of six research projects.

Research projects that boost scientific synergies among institutions, organizations, universities, and experts will be prioritized, IRNA reported.

The grant, amounting to 40 billion rials (some $44,000) for each research project for at most three years, will be allocated to the following fields.

1. Water science:
Ecological economics of water consumption
Agricultural water management
Sustainable management of natural water resources
Water treatment, purification, and desalination

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Fundamentals and Development: 
Trustworthy AI
Reinforced deep learning
Diagnostic models
Generative AI
Large language models
Novel learning algorithms
Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KRR)
New architectures of deep neural networks

Recent joint efforts 

Iran and China will support the implementation of ten research projects by faculty members following the fifth joint call by the INSF and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

According to ISNA, the funding for each research project will be allocated to the following fields.

1. Traditional Medicine and Medicinal Plants: 
Evidence-based integration and standardization of traditional Chinese and traditional Persian medicine for major diseases; Sustainable medicinal plants: eco-cultivation, biodiversity, and resilience; and the Application of Digital and AI Tools in the Classification, Analysis, and Clinical Research of Traditional Medicine and Medicinal Plants.

2. Energy: 
Renewable Energy; High efficiency Utilization of Conventional Energy; Energy-Related Materials; Storage Technologies; and the Application of Artificial Intelligence in the Energy Field.

Supported by the Iran National Science Foundation and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, an Iranian-Chinese workshop was held on May 31 and June 1, focusing on emerging ways to boost climate change resilience.

The workshop titled ‘Emerging Technologies and Methods for Climate Resilience’ was organized by Sharif University of Technology and Chongqing University, China. It was conducted both in person and online in the English language. The main objective of the workshop was to identify the most innovative ways to strengthen urban climate change resilience, IRNA reported.

The workshop was centered around climate-responsive urban design and technologies, climate risk management and new technologies to manage risks, urban energy transitioning, climate resilience, water resilience and integrated system planning, smart governance and social adaptation to climate change, and climate system modeling to assess and predict climate change. 

It also highlighted using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data in analyzing and adapting to climate change, sustainable infrastructure, resource management for climate-resilient cities, international cooperation, and the development of joint solutions to enhance urban resilience.

MT/MG