Witnessed by the British Ambassador Sir William Ehrman and the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Ms Fiona Hyslop, the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) inked an agreement with the University of Aberdeen to jointly establish the Joint China-UK Institute of Environmental Technology (JCUIET) on 7 April 2008, at the British Embassy in Beijing. The University of Aberdeen is among the three oldest universities in Scotland, with over 500 years history. Over the last decades, CAS and the University of Aberdeen have enjoyed fruitful collaboration in many disciplines, such as environmental biogeochemistry, fish immunology, microbial ecology and animal ecology.

The establishment of such an institute is to further consolidate the ongoing collaboration, and to forge a network of technology transfer between the two nations, particularly on environmental technologies, to which both nations have attached great attention. The move is also mirrored by the recent announcement by UK Research Council to strengthen collaboration with China, USA and India in technology transfer. In the next three years, JCUIET will concentrate on: 1) the development of joint research programs; 2) technology transfer for environmental remediation between the two countries; 3) the promotion of high-tech companies in environmental technology through collaboration between China and the UK, and beyond and 4) joint education program for postgraduates.