The research project aims at integrating and combining economic, legal and engineering competencies to analyze the level of economic cooperation reached so far between China and Europe in the renewable energy and the environment industries and to identify specific areas to boost partnership opportunities. Using a multi disciplinary approach, the exchanged staff will work on three main research areas.The first one is focused on trade and investment flows and aims at identifying critical issues, gaps, and potentials in Europe-China relationships. Major effects of Europe-China agreements on foreign direct investments (FDI) and trade flows are examined. Problems encountered and opportunities to be seized at firm level will also be analyzed. The economic perspective is supported and enriched by the engineering and legal perspectives. Engineering knowledge is fundamental to defining concretely the sectors, products and processes which have high deployment potential. Engineering research activity is focused on two main research areas, both related with energy efficiency and carbon dioxide reduction: mobility and the transportation sector and low carbon buildings. The legal knowledge is relevant to understanding obstacles due to the regulatory environment, as well as to identifying appropriate solutions to enhance collaboration. Main investigation areas will be: offshore oil and gas and renewable energy; anti-dumping; environmental and social standards and corporate social responsibility.POREEN aims at increasing the availability of interdisciplinary studies, with a comprehensive overview of Europe-China relations. Developing integrated knowledge is fundamental to provide useful and reliable information to support EU and local policymakers, as well as companies working in/with China. POREEN should lay the ground for further related studies on this topic and establish integrated and interdisciplinary research links between European and Chinese centres of excellence.