Chinese-Russian Joint Research Center on Space Weather: Results and prospects

We present an overview of the history, the main scientific results and prospects of the Chinese-Russian Joint Research Center on Space Weather. The Chinese-Russian Joint Research Center was established by the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics SB RAS (ISTP SB RAS) and National Space Science Center CAS (NSSC CAS) in 2000. The center deals with fundamental issues in modern solar-terrestrial physics, such as quantitative description of the processes in complex interconnected system Sun — interplanetary medium — magnetosphere — ionosphere — atmosphere, assessment of capabilities of predicting interactions within this system, development of effective models for forecasting the state of the atmosphere and near-Earth space. Over the 24-year period, the Joint Research Center has united more than 10 scientific institutes in Russia and China; about 60 scientific projects have been implemented, and more than 400 joint scientific articles have been published. Joint efforts of Russian and Chinese researchers allowed obtaining important results in study of physical processes in near-Earth space. The Chinese-Russian Joint Research Center has proven its usefulness and continues studying the Sun, solar-terrestrial relations, and near-Earth space. The future work of the Joint Research Center will be closely linked to the implementation of major unique projects in China and Russia: the International Meridian Circle Program (IMCP) led by NSSC CAS, and the National Heliogeophysical Complex of the Russian Academy of Sciences (NHC RAS) led by ISTP SB RAS. We describe these projects in this paper