A polar bear on ice floes in the Franz Josef Land archipelago.（PHOTO: VCG）

By CHEN Chunyou

The sponsored research topic for this year's A3 Foresight Program is "Approaches for Future Earth in Northeast Asia—Climate Change and Its Effects." The program is calling for relevant research projects from universities and research institutions in respective countries.

The A3 Foresight Program is a cooperative research program, initiated in 2005 by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF).

Based on an agreement among NSFC,  JSPS and NRF, the three countries support this collaborative program under which their researchers carry out joint projects.

The program works to create world-class research hubs in terms of common interest and special importance within the Asian region.

Project applicants are required to find another two eligible partner researchers in the counterpart countries, and submit the application documents to their own affiliated institutions for authenticity checks.

Chinese universities and research institutions submit their project applications to NSFC, while the Japanese and Korean counterpart institutions submit matching proposals to JSPS and NRF respectively.

The application period starts from January 14 to 24, 2022, but the applicant's affiliated institutions may set earlier deadlines.

To make sure the application process runs successfully, the candidates are expected to submit their application documents to their affiliated institutions before the due date.

Once the applicant's proposal is accepted, a five-year research period will be given from August 2022 to July 2027, with funding support from the home country.

Applicants can check the eligibility of the candidates in the application guidelines provided by the three partners for their domestic applicants.