5 Scientific Collaboration for Climate Diplomacy: The US-China Clean Energy Research Center

The US-China relationship is arguably the most influential one in shaping the global climate change effort, and the US-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) is the most ambitious model of US-China clean energy technology cooperation to date. The CERC mechanism allowed the US and China to design a series of international clean energy partnerships that contributed to the development, deployment, and dissemination of clean energy technologies, supported by a unique intellectual property (IP) rights protection framework. The CERC experience offers concrete lessons in how cross-border innovation can be superimposed on national innovation systems to leverage the strengths of both countries.