The China Project is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research program focused on China’s atmospheric environment. It conducts scholarly research on the complex nature and causes of local and regional air pollution in China, their health and economic impacts, and how measures to address them might be integrated with equitable international strategies to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The China Project was established by the Harvard University Center for the Environment to pursue cross-university collaboration, a mandate that continues to shape it now with support of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The Project follows an additional collaborative mandate, to conduct its research in full partnership with colleagues and partner institutions in China. More than 25 researchers from the two countries currently participate, in disciplines ranging across natural, applied, and health sciences, economics, public policy, law, and other fields.

The Project is chaired by atmospheric scientist Michael B. McElroy and Chris Nielsen serves at its executive director. Faculty and researchers at five Harvard schools are currently active: the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Law School. Participants are listed under "People" and in the descriptions of six areas of research accessed from the homepage.

Collaborating universities and research institutes in China presently include Tsinghua University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Beihang University, Peking University, and others. QU Geping, founding administrator of the State Environmental Protection Administration, has long served as Senior Advisor, and the Project has active ties to other Chinese officials with leading responsibilities on energy and environment.

Initiated with a preliminary, stage-setting review (McElroy, Nielsen, and Lydon 1998, HUCE/Harvard University Press), the Project has since consisted of an evolving series of externally-funded studies on the many disciplinary dimensions influencing atmospheric environment in China. These have ranged from small, single-researcher studies to expansive, multi-part projects that involve up to a dozen researchers working across disciplines and nations, and can include large data collection efforts in the field.

Introduction to six areas of current research can be accessed on the homepage or via the navigation box at upper left.

Results of research are chiefly reported in scholarly journals, books, and dissertations, listed in publications. They are also presented in seminars, research conferences and workshops, and policy briefings held at Harvard, in China, and elsewhere.

The Project hosts a long-running interdisciplinary seminar series, with talks by both external and internal researchers, held at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and open to the public.