Recently, FIRI and the James Hutton Institute (JHI) of the United Kingdom signed a cooperation agreement to build a joint research center for sustainable utilization of water and soil resources (China-UK WISE). This agreement is one of the important results of the visit to JHI by Qi Xuebin, the deputy director of FIRI in 2017.

The James Hutton Institute of the United Kingdom has made great achievements in environmental and biochemical sciences, ecological sciences, cell and molecular sciences. And FIRI has the distinct advantage in the utilization of agricultural water resources and water environmental protection, agricultural efficient water use technology and equipment, material and energy cycle rules of farmland ecosystem, etc. Under the framework of the agreement, both sides will cooperate in joint research on the sustainable utilization of agricultural water and soil resources, international cooperation, and talent exchange and training.

The agreement provided a platform for combine the advantages of both sides to carry out irrigation risk assessment and cutting-edge research on ecological environment, jointly applying for international cooperation projects, co-hosting international conferences, jointly training graduate students, and mutual visits of scientists. It also laid the foundation for large-scale scientific research collaboration.