●  Draw together very best academic research teams from the EU and China with diverse multi-disciplinary skills and expertise and with common interests in the field of bioenergy to confront the challenge of climate change and sustainable development in a global framework.

●   Execute an innovative exchange and training programme that allows detailed comparison of different methodologies on their merits, encourages cross-fertilisation of the ideas behind the various approaches, and will stimulate the commercialisation of new biofuel technologies through close cooperation among international partners.

●   Bring together the very best research groups in this field in order to remove fragmentation of the existing research activities at various universities and research institutes and to achieve a critical mass of research effort unparalleled anywhere in the world.

●  Create a platform for research training and transfer of knowledge activities, both within the network domain and towards the public domain, crossing inter-sector boundaries; this is essential to promote new second generation biofuel technologies, train a sufficient number of people in this field to meet the challenges ahead, and ensure the competitiveness of EU industry.

●  Disseminate knowledge to the larger international communities to maximise the impact of this network and ensure the academic and industrial relevance of its research activities.

●   Provide researchers, young researchers in particular, with intensive training-through-research programmes as well as complementary skills training in order to become trainers of the future in a multi-disciplinary field of academic, industrial and societal importance; and as such improving the young researcher's career perspectives.

●  Establish collaborative mechanisms for long-term partnerships between the EU and China researchers and institutes on important issues such as energy to combat the climate changes and other challenges for 21^st century.