VITO

VITO (Flemish institute for technological research) is a leading European independent research and technology organisation in the areas of cleantech and sustainable development, elaborating solutions for the large societal challenges of today. VITO is one of the largest RTOs in Europe, and It focuses research programmes such as environmental protection technology, sustainable energy, materials science and land use (modeling and remote sensing).

VITO provides innovative and high-quality solutions, whereby large and small companies can gain a competitive advantage, and advises industry and governments on determining their policy for the future. VITO has more than 1200 highly-qualified employees who work on international projects all around the world and collaborates with sector federations and their research centres, universities, colleges and European research institutes.

VITO’s headquarter is located in Mol, Belgium, and the company has subsidiaries in China’s HongKong, Beijing as well as subsidiaries in middle east. The total turnover of VITO amounted to about 237 million euros in 2019, of which the contribution by contract research and tech-valorization was over 160 million euro.

VITO started the cooperation with China since 2004. The initial cooperation projects were mainly projects in the remote sensing and environmental fields within the EU-China and/or Sino-Belgium cooperation framework. VITO established its 100% daughter company VITO Asia Limited in HongKong in 2010. VITO has been collaborating with various Chinese companies (SOEs, private) in a more commercial business model (e.g. tech transfer) through this HongKong daughter company in the past years. In Oct. 2011, VITO's first daughter company in mainland China: Beijing LIBOVITO Environmental Technology Co Ltd. was established. LIBOVITO has become one of the most influential companies in the field of air quality models in China. Its OPAQ air quality forecast model has been applied in more than 60 Chinese cities, making its significant contribution to China’s efforts in fighting with air pollution.