DALIAN MARITIME UNIVERSITY

Their core work

Dalian Maritime University is a Chinese public university in Liaoning Province specializing in maritime engineering, logistics, and applied sciences. Their H2020 participation was through MSCA-RISE staff exchange programs, where they functioned as a third-party partner — hosting visiting European researchers and sending their own faculty to EU institutions — rather than leading research directly. The university brings together two distinct capability clusters visible in their EU activity: thermal and fluid engineering sciences, and global supply chain management with a sustainability dimension. As a major Chinese maritime institution, they offer particular value as a gateway to Chinese maritime logistics networks, port infrastructure knowledge, and East Asian agri-food trade systems.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their earliest H2020 involvement (2017, ThermaSMART) was in a hard-engineering domain — thermal physics applied to microelectronics cooling — suggesting faculty with heat transfer and fluid dynamics backgrounds. By 2018, their second engagement shifted entirely to agri-food supply chain management and sustainability, reflecting either a different department driving the partnership or a deliberate move toward applied economic and environmental research. The two projects share no obvious thematic connection, which suggests the university is participating via multiple independent faculties rather than a single research group with a unified agenda.

The shift from engineering physics to food systems and sustainability mirrors a broader institutional trend at Chinese maritime universities toward applied sustainability and global trade research, suggesting future collaborations are more likely in logistics, circular economy, or food trade than in thermal sciences.

How they like to work

Dalian Maritime University has participated exclusively as a third-party partner in MSCA-RISE projects, a role that centers on researcher mobility rather than direct project leadership or budget management. Despite only two projects, they have been embedded in large consortia — 33 unique partners across 15 countries — indicating they were attractive as a non-EU node in broad international networks. This pattern is typical of Chinese universities in MSCA-RISE: valued for access to local expertise, infrastructure, and networks, but not yet driving their own EU-funded research agendas.

Despite only two projects, the university has touched 33 distinct consortium partners across 15 countries, reflecting the large, geographically diverse nature of MSCA-RISE networks. Their geographic footprint spans Europe and Asia, positioning them as a China-side anchor point in EU research collaborations.

What sets them apart

Dalian Maritime University is one of China's top maritime institutions, giving it direct ties to one of the world's largest port and logistics ecosystems — a capability set that very few European universities can replicate internally. For consortia building EU–China bridges in supply chain research, food trade, or maritime logistics, they offer both academic credibility and real-world sector access. Their dual presence in engineering and management disciplines also makes them unusual among Chinese partners in EU projects, where most institutions focus on a single technical domain.

Highlights from their portfolio

• GOLF
  Part of an EU–Asia research network explicitly designed to bridge European and Chinese agri-food supply chain research, making it the more strategically significant of their two engagements given the East Asian trade dimension.
• ThermaSMART
  Their earliest H2020 engagement, in a highly specialized thermal physics domain, reveals an engineering faculty capability that is otherwise invisible from the university's maritime identity.