NORTHWEST A&F UNIVERSITY

Their core work

Northwest A&F University (NWAFU) is a major Chinese agricultural research university based in Yangling, Shaanxi Province, specializing in soil science, crop breeding, and agroecology. Within H2020, they serve as China's research counterpart in EU-China bilateral projects focused on sustainable agriculture, soil management, and biodiversity. Their practical contributions span soil quality assessment methodologies, legume breeding for protein self-sufficiency, and pollinator conservation research. They bridge European and Chinese agricultural systems, providing comparative data and field trial sites across Chinese farming conditions.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

NWAFU's early H2020 work (2015-2018) centered on soil properties, crop productivity, and breeding — hands-on agricultural science with a strong field research character. From 2019 onward, their focus shifted toward ecosystem-level thinking: sustainable intensification, soil healing strategies, farm planning tools, and biodiversity conservation. The trajectory shows a clear move from studying individual soil and crop parameters to addressing whole-system sustainability and environmental policy.

NWAFU is expanding from pure agricultural productivity research toward environmental conservation and ecosystem services, making them increasingly relevant for projects linking food security with biodiversity protection.

How they like to work

NWAFU participates exclusively as a partner, never as coordinator — consistent with their role as the Chinese counterpart in EU-led bilateral projects. With 104 unique partners across 27 countries from just 5 projects, they operate in large, diverse consortia (averaging ~20 partners per project). This makes them an experienced team player in complex international collaborations, comfortable working across cultural and institutional boundaries.

Despite only 5 projects, NWAFU has built a remarkably broad network of 104 partners across 27 countries, reflecting the large-scale nature of EU-China cooperative research programs. Their geographic connections span nearly all EU member states plus China, giving them unusual bridging capacity between European and Asian research communities.

What sets them apart

NWAFU's distinctive value is as China's premier agricultural university partner for EU research — nearly all their H2020 projects are EU-China bilateral initiatives. They provide what European partners cannot: access to Chinese field sites, farming systems data, and comparative research across vastly different agricultural contexts. For any consortium planning EU-China agricultural or environmental cooperation, NWAFU is a proven and experienced Chinese counterpart.

Highlights from their portfolio

• iSQAPER
  Five-year EU-China soil quality assessment spanning European and Chinese farming systems, one of the earliest large-scale bilateral soil research platforms.
• Safeguard
  Marks NWAFU's expansion beyond agriculture into pollinator conservation and biodiversity policy — a significant thematic departure running through 2026.
• TUdi
  Focuses on transforming unsustainable soil management with practical farm planning tools and soil healing strategies across EU and China.