Shanghai Sci-tech Co-research Program: How I Won and How to Apply

October 26, 2026 · Research Funding · 16 min read

By Dr.-Ing. Faisal Qayyum. Writing a proposal yourself? See how I can help.

On 20 March 2026 I sent my application documents to my host in Shanghai. Then nothing happened for five months. By August I had half given up on it.

At the end of August a notice arrived in Chinese, addressed to FAISALQAYYUM, in capitals and without a space. It asked me to complete the task book for the project. We had been selected. Even then it felt abstract. It became real on 12 October, when the contract arrived with a four-day deadline: printed, stamped copies had to reach the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (STCSM) by the 16th.

Two days later I signed it as project leader. The project is a two-year collaboration with a well-known professor at Shanghai Dianji University on laser stealth dicing of silicon carbide wafers. The laser side is his expertise. My side is simulating how the crack starts and runs.

It means more to me than the funding line suggests. I grew up in Pakistan, hold German nationality, and am a few months into a faculty post at the University of Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. This is the first international project I lead as the named principal investigator rather than as a team member. If it can be done from here, the door is open wider than most people think.

Since the University of Tabuk announced the grant as an international research achievement, my inbox and WhatsApp have filled with the same question in different words: how did you get it, and can I apply? The answers are spread across a Chinese guideline, an English call page, a Word form and a submission system the applicant never logs into. This post puts them in one place, with the official links, with numbers from the 169 projects funded last year, and with what happened in my case. The 2026 call is open until 31 December 2026. There is still time.

What the Program Pays For

The Chinese name is 上海伙伴科研计划, literally the Shanghai Partner Research Program. The English call calls it the Shanghai Sci-tech Co-research Program. It is run by STCSM, the city's science commission, and lets any research organisation registered in Shanghai invite a foreign early-career scientist to lead a joint project. Since April 2026 it sits inside the city's Global Sci-Tech Partnership Plan, which lists it among its measures for bringing foreign young scientists to Shanghai as project leaders.

It is not a visiting fellowship. The foreign scientist is the named project leader (负责人) on a government contract, the city's own science commission pays for the work, and in 2025 the program funded 169 projects across all of Shanghai's universities, hospitals and institutes. For a researcher outside China it is also a door: two years of joint work with a Shanghai lab, shared papers, and a reason to keep coming back after the project ends.

The money is simple. Each project gets a fixed RMB 400,000 for two years. It is managed as a lump sum (包干制): there is no line-item budget, more than 80% must go to direct project costs, and the host and project leader decide the spending together within a negative list set by the city's lump-sum funding rules.

There is no topic list. The Chinese guideline (沪科指南〔2026〕1号) asks only for high-risk, high-value basic research and frontier technology. In practice that means almost any field, as the next section shows.

The rounds have changed shape. The 2025 round had a short window, 14 October to 7 November 2025. The 2026 round runs all year, from 28 January to 31 December 2026, and approves projects in batches. Mine came through in one of those batches.

169 Funded Projects, Analysed

STCSM published the full list of projects selected in 2025: 169 rows, each with a title and a host. I have not seen it summarised anywhere. I extracted the table and counted. It is the best evidence there is of what this program actually funds.

Start with the fields. I sorted each title into one field by hand. Materials and chemistry lead, but no field is shut out: maths and astrophysics sit on the same list as hospital projects, fisheries and a reinsurance model.

Three patterns stood out. First, 33 of the 169 titles (20%) are about climate, clean energy, waste or pollution. Second, 27 titles name AI or machine learning, spread across engineering, medicine and environment rather than sitting in a computer-science corner. Third, 112 of the 169 titles are in English only, so an English proposal is normal, not a handicap.

The four biggest hosts, Donghua, Tongji, Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong, took 80 of the 169 projects (47%). That tells you where the research offices know this program well. It does not mean you need one of them: 14 organisations won exactly one project, and the hosts include hospitals, institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and three companies.

What nobody publishes is a success rate. STCSM gives the number funded, not the number of applications. The only figure I found comes from the Shanghai Institute of Technology, which reported a 50% approval rate for its applications at an internal experience-sharing seminar in June 2026. One university's rate is not the city's. Read it as a hint, not a statistic. The classified list is available as a CSV if you want to search it for groups in your field.

Seven Rules Decide Whether You Can Apply

The eligibility rules are short and strict. Here they are from the 2026 call, with how I met each one.

The host has its own conditions. It must be registered in Shanghai, set up an international visiting-scholar or research-exchange post for you, check your background, and sign a cooperation agreement or service contract with you. It also supports your work and life while you are in the city.

How I Found My Host: A Friend, Then a Different Topic

I did not find my host through a database. In early 2026, a few weeks after I had started at the University of Tabuk, a friend who knew us both put me in touch with my future host, a professor at Shanghai Dianji University. That one introduction did more than any cold email would have. He already knew the program and knew what a Shanghai panel wants to read.

My first idea came straight from my crystal-plasticity work. It did not survive the first conversation. In his view it sat outside the areas his side could argue as a priority.

This is the part I tell everyone who asks. The project that wins is rarely your favourite idea. It is the idea where the host's lab and your skills each do something the other cannot. A reviewer reading our proposal could see who does the lasers, who does the mechanics, and why neither of us could do the project alone.

We spent a few weeks on calls and messages settling the topic, who writes which section and what each side brings. On 20 March 2026 I sent him the full package.

Where my time went: most of it into the joint topic, before any form existed. The rest went into the project summary, 1,500 words that had to show the science, make both roles obvious and explain what the two years would do for me. The academic profile and the documents were quick by comparison. If you are planning your weeks, plan them that way round. If you have no friend who knows a Shanghai professor, build the connection the slow way: the same list-first approach I describe in how to build a research network before you need one works here too, with the 2025 project list above as your starting list.

The Application, Step by Step

Here is the full sequence, with what you do and what your host does.

1. Find a host. Ask your network first. Then search the 2025 list for groups in your field and write to the group leader: who you are, what you would bring to their lab, and one concrete project idea. The host must be an organisation registered in Shanghai.
2. Agree the topic and the roles. Ask the host directly whether your idea fits what they can argue for. Settle who leads which work package before anyone writes a word.
3. Download the English form. STCSM provides a Word file, Project Proposal (application form), 2026, linked from the English call page. You fill this in; the host does the Chinese side.
4. Write the four text sections within their limits:

   Section	Limit	What it asks for
   Abstract	400 words	The project in one page, plus up to 5 keywords
   Academic profile	1,000 words	Education and career; research capability and standing
   Project summary	1,500 words	The research and its scientific value; what you gain and which skills you develop
   Foundation of research	1,000 words	The host's research and logistics support; your research plan in Shanghai; your recent outputs in the field

   The "what you gain" part is easy to underwrite. This is a talent program. The panel wants to see what the two years do for you, not only for the science.
5. Collect the supporting documents. What I sent: the completed and signed form, my CV with publication list, scans of my passport and PhD certificate, an employment letter from my university, and a photo of myself holding my passport. Your host may ask for a slightly different set. Ask early.
6. The host enters the application. The submission system is the Shanghai Science and Technology Management Information System, with a login through Shanghai's 一网通办 government account. The host's side fills in the Chinese online form, uploads the feasibility plan (可行性方案) and adds what the guideline requires: an ethics self-assessment, a statement if the work builds on earlier NSFC, ministry or city funding, and an official letter if you want certain reviewers excluded. The host may name a Chinese research assistant to handle the paperwork. I never logged in during the application.
7. The host's research office reviews and submits. The deadline of 31 December 2026, 16:30 includes this internal review. Get your documents to the host weeks before it.
8. Panel review. One round of panel review, then approval in batches.
9. Notices, task book, contract. The notices come by email in Chinese, addressed to you as project leader. The host and you then complete the task book (任务书) and the contract.

For questions about the call itself, STCSM runs a service hotline: 800-820-5114 from a landline in China, 400-820-5114 from a mobile.

From Documents to Contract Took Seven Months

About five months passed between my documents and the first notice, and nearly seven before a signed contract. Then the contract window was four days. The slow part is out of your hands. The fast part is not. Keep your signature file and documents ready once you have applied.

What Happens After You Are Funded

Winning changes the paperwork more than people expect. This is how the program works for all funded projects.

• The contract is between STCSM and the host. You are named in it as project leader (负责人) and sign on that line, but the host institution is the contracting party.
• The money is paid to the host's account and spent under the lump-sum rules.
• The task book is what you are assessed against. It fixes the research content, the indicators and the expected outputs, which can include journal papers, patents, software and technical reports.
• The stay rule is in the contract, with acceptance and the funding depending on it.
• All outputs acknowledge STCSM and the project number.
• The project closes with an acceptance review. Final materials are due within three months of the end date, and the science and technology report is made public.

Working With a Chinese Host: The Practical Part

None of this is in the guideline, and all of it saved me time.

• WeChat is the work channel. Email works, but the contract, the questions and the quick decisions all came to me on WeChat. Install it before your first call. Registration can ask an existing WeChat user to confirm your account, so do it early.
• Calls run on Tencent Meeting (腾讯会议, called VooV Meeting outside China), not Zoom or Google Meet. Google services and WhatsApp are blocked on the mainland.
• Send files, not Google Drive links. A Drive link may simply not open for your host. Attach the file to an email or send it on WeChat, or ask which service they prefer.
• Read the Chinese notices properly. System emails come in Chinese and address you by your passport name, in capitals. WeChat's built-in translation or any good translator handles them. Do not guess a deadline from a half-read message.
• Seals matter more than signatures. Chinese contracts carry the institution's red seal, and paper copies are stamped across the page edges. Your part is usually an electronic signature on the project-leader line of the PDF; the host prints, stamps and delivers.
• Accounts usually hang on a Chinese mobile number. Government systems often log in by SMS code. That is one reason the host or its research assistant runs the account.
• Names come family name first. Li Ming is Prof. Li. In messages, colleagues often write 老师 (laoshi, teacher) after a family name as a polite form of address.
• Plan around the holidays. Spring Festival (late January or February) and the National Day week (1–7 October) slow everything down. With a 31 December deadline, aim to have your documents with the host by November.
• China runs on one time zone, UTC+8. 5 pm in Shanghai is noon in Saudi Arabia and 10 or 11 am in Germany, depending on the season.
• Payments are WeChat Pay and Alipay. Both let visitors link many foreign cards. Set one up before your first stay.
• Ask for the invitation letter early. A long research stay needs a visa, and the host's invitation letter drives what you can apply for. It also helps when you ask your own university for leave.

Settling into an academic job abroad has a checklist too. I wrote down the Saudi one in your first two weeks as a faculty member in Saudi Arabia, and most of the same habits (scan everything, keep originals with you, ask early) apply to a Shanghai stay.

Is This Grant Right for You?

Quick Answers

Who is eligible for the Shanghai Sci-tech Co-research Program?

A foreign national with a PhD in the natural sciences or engineering from a world-class university or renowned research institute, born on or after 1 January 1981 for the 2026 round, holding a formal teaching or research post outside China, not employed full-time in China, and willing to spend at least six months in Shanghai during the project. The application must come through a host organisation registered in Shanghai.

How much funding does the Shanghai Sci-tech Co-research Program give?

A fixed RMB 400,000 per project for two years, managed as a lump sum. There is no line-item budget, at least 80 percent must go to direct costs, and the money is paid to the host institution in Shanghai, not to the foreign scientist.

Do I have to live in Shanghai for the Shanghai Sci-tech Co-research Program?

Not full time, but you must spend at least six months in Shanghai in total during the two-year project, including one continuous stay of at least three months. The rule is written into the contract, so agree it with your employer before you apply.

How do I find a host institution in Shanghai?

Start with people you already know: ask colleagues and friends who know researchers in Shanghai for an introduction. Then search the official list of projects funded in the previous round for groups in your field, and write a short, specific email to the group leader. The host must be an organisation registered in Shanghai, and it submits the application for you.

What is the deadline for the 2026 Shanghai Sci-tech Co-research Program?

The 2026 call accepts applications from 28 January 2026 to 31 December 2026 at 16:30 Shanghai time, and approves projects in batches. The deadline includes the host institution's own review and submission, so your documents should reach the host several weeks earlier.

Final Thought

The program looks bureaucratic from outside: a Chinese guideline, a system you cannot log into, a form with word limits. Underneath it is a simple bet. Shanghai pays for a foreign scientist and a local group to do something together that neither could do alone, and it checks that the scientist actually turns up.

So the work is mostly done before the form. Find the right person, find the project that needs both of you, and be honest with yourself and your employer about the six months. I would not have won this with my first idea. I won it with the second one, built in a few weeks of conversation with someone I met through a friend.

It is a prestigious grant, and it is a doable one. If you are applying this year, I would like to hear how it goes.

If You Are Planning a Move Behind the Grant

A Shanghai project often comes at the same time as a bigger career step. If yours is a faculty move to the Gulf, how to land an academic job in Saudi Arabia covers the applications and the offer. If you are earlier in your career and still building the contacts that make grants like this possible, start with the network post. More about my own research is on the about page.