Based on the guidelines established in a 2013 MoU between CAS and CONICYT, and more specific agreement between NAOC and SOCHIAS, CAS has promised to support up to four collaborative projects during each Call, for 1-2 years duration and with a funding level not to exceed 75,000 USD per year. In December 2019, a Call for joint research proposal was issued for the calendar year 2019 to the astronomy communities of both countries. The application and evaluation process was significantly delayed due to the CoVID-19 pandemic. Ten proposals were received by the extended deadline of May 2020, and these have been evaluated by a panel of senior Chilean and Chinese astronomers, and reviewed by the China-Chile Joint Committee (JCCC) in January, 2021. Among these high quality joint research projects, four teams were selected to be supported by the Joint Fund for the current round.
They are:
- “CIDER: Charting Ionization During the Epoch of Reionization” by Zhenya Zheng from SHAO and Felipe Barrientos from Pontificia Universidad de Chile;
- “RFI Mitigation for FAST real time FRB ObservationDetector” by Ran Duan from NAOC and Ricardo Finger from U. of Chile;
- “Development and fabrication of LCT first light instruments” by Feng Liu from Shanghai Normal University and Rodrigo A. Reeves from U. of Concepcion;
- “The LCT project: a mm/sub-mm astronomy platform for Chile and China” by Wanzhou Shi from Shanghai Normal University and Rodrigo A. Reeves from U. of Concepcion.