The application of the Intergovernmental Project of National Key Research and Development Program (“European Virus Archive goes global”) submitted by Prof. Zhihong Hu in Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has been approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). The project funding is 368.82 million. 

On April 1, 2015, WIV has officially joined the European Virus Archive goes global (EVAg) project, a part of the European Horizon 2020 Research Project, after signing the consortium agreement. 

In 2009, the European Virus Archive (EVA) project started. It is a project funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The overall objective was to create and mobilize a European network of high calibre centres with the appropriate expertise, to collect, amplify, characterize, standardize, authenticate, distribute and track, mammalian and other exotic viruses. The EVA project was very successful that the EVA web-based catalogue contains 1364 well-characterized viruses and about 2000 products to the scientific community. The current project EVAg (2015-2019) is aimed at the largest global virus collection network. Now it includes an international group of 23 laboratories including 16 EU member state institutions and 7 non-EU institutions. EVAg objectives will meet the needs of scientists, worldwide, by generating a carefully authenticated animal virus collection that is larger than any existing repository, and readily available to all laboratories that meet approved ethical, safety and security standards. 

Here, the approval of WIV’s project application from MOST is very significant for China to introduce necessary strategic virus resources and to build international accredited standards on virus reservation and quality control. Additionally, this project will provide important resources to the scientific researches and biotechnology industries including antiviral drugs and vaccines from home and abroad, which will undoubtedly improve China’s international influence in responding to emergencies in international public health effectively.