INSTITUTE OF ANIMAL SCIENCE (IAS), CHINESE ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES (CAAS)

Their core work

IAS-CAAS is the animal science research institute of China's national agricultural academy, working on livestock breeding, animal health, welfare, and feed. In its H2020 engagements it has contributed Chinese expertise and field access to European projects on African Swine Fever vaccines, antimicrobial resistance in livestock, and EU-China protein crop breeding. For European partners, they are effectively the gateway to Chinese research infrastructure, disease surveillance data, and large-scale livestock populations. Their role is strategic rather than technical — they bring the China dimension that policy-relevant EU projects increasingly need.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first H2020 engagement (EUCLEG, 2017) was plant-side: legume protein crops, genomic selection, and drought resilience. From 2018 onward their footprint shifted fully to animal production — livestock welfare and AMR in HealthyLivestock, then viral disease control in VACDIVA. The trajectory moves from crop genetics toward animal health, vaccines, and biosecurity, mirroring the parent Institute of Animal Science's core mandate.

They are moving deeper into viral livestock disease and vaccine development — a strong fit for anyone building consortia on animal health, zoonoses, or pandemic preparedness with a need for Chinese field reach.

How they like to work

IASCAAS consistently joins as a participant, never as coordinator — a classic role for non-EU strategic partners brought into Horizon 2020 to provide Chinese data, samples, or field validation. They appear in large, broad consortia (83 partners across 24 countries), suggesting they are invited as a specialist country-expert rather than embedded in tight-knit teams. Expect them to be a reliable but externally-facing partner, delivering Chinese livestock datasets, field trials, or disease surveillance inputs.

Connected to 83 unique partners across 24 countries, which is unusually broad for only three projects — a signal they are plugged into Europe's top agri-food consortia as the preferred Chinese partner rather than working with a narrow regional circle.

What sets them apart

As part of CAAS — China's top agricultural research body — IAS is one of the few non-EU institutions repeatedly invited into H2020 food and livestock consortia. Their value is not that they do work Europeans cannot, but that they give European projects access to Chinese field sites, disease outbreak data (especially ASF), and policy alignment with the world's largest pork and feed market. Partner with them when your project needs real EU-China impact rather than European-only coverage.

Highlights from their portfolio

• VACDIVA
  Major EU flagship for African Swine Fever — a disease that devastated Chinese pig herds from 2018, making IAS-CAAS's field access directly strategic for the consortium.
• EUCLEG
  Explicit EU-China twin-track project on protein crops, showing IAS-CAAS operates beyond animal science into plant breeding when policy alignment demands.
• HealthyLivestock
  Positions the institute inside Europe's AMR agenda, linking Chinese intensive livestock practice to EU One Health policy.