A Sino-UK project on “Data Services for Agricultural Resilience” was launched in Beijing in April, 2018. The project is co-led by RADI researcher Prof. HUANG Wenjiang together with his UK counterpart Prof. Richard Tiffin from Agrimetrics, the world's first Big Data Centre of Excellence for the whole agri-food value chain.

The project aims to create a big data platform, providing data services for the whole agricultural system. The platform is expect to bolster research, facilitate innovative technology applications, showcase commercial promotion, and help governmental decision-making in the agricultural field.

RADI has long been engaged in agriculture monitoring by remote sensing, and is also home to huge satellite data gathered from China Remote Sensing Satellite Ground Station (RSGS), a RADI housed big research infrastructure. The project will pool data and research forces of both RADI and Agrimetrics in the field, and make good use of the research results of previous five Sino-UK projects. 

The new project is fueled by the success of “integrating advanced earth observation and environmental information for sustainable management of crop pests and diseases”, which, as one of the five Sino-UK projects co-financed by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of UK, was launched in April 2016 and its Chinese PI is also Prof. Huang.