The China-Canada Dinosaur Project (Chinese: 中国-加拿大恐龙计划; Pinyin: Zhōngguó-jiānádà kǒnglóng jìhuà; also known as Sino-Canadian Dinosaur Project) was a six-year series of palaeontological expeditions carried out by scientists from China and Canada. History Background In the 19th and early-20th centuries, foreign and domestic researchers - including Roy Chapman Andrews and Yang Zhongjian - made many dinosaur-related discoveries in China and Mongolia, particularly in the Gobi Desert. This changed with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party and establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, which saw Chinese academia reorganized and some fields, including anthropology, fall out of favour over their perceived ties to imperialism. The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing had many of its students reassigned onto other projects, such as the Down to the Countryside Movement, but began to rebuild in the mid-1970s with the reestablishment of the institute's journal Vertebrata PalAsiatica and monumental discoveries like the Dashanpu bonebeds. Chinese palaeontologist Dong Zhiming became prominent in the organization following the death of Yang Zhongjian, his mentor and the "father of Chinese vertebrate paleontology". A period of economic and political reforms known as the "Opening of China" in the West led to scientific cooperation beginning between researchers in the country and abroad, drawing the attention of Canadian researchers. While establishing the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in 1982, Provincial Museum of Alberta palaeontologist Philip J. Currie suggested to communications consultant Brian Noble that the Gobi Desert was an ideal location for discovering dinosaur fossils. Noble received an $8,000 CAD grant from the Canada Council to begin a feasibility study into creating a cultural program that could facilitate joint research missions by Canadian and Chinese palaeontologists, and in 1984 founded the Ex Terra Foundation, an Edmonton-based non-profit. Noble would remain executive director of the foundation for the duration of its existence, later bringing on Kevin Taft to serve as CEO from 1986 to 1991. Creation The China-Canada Dinosaur Project (CCDP) was formally launched by the Ex Terra Foundation in 1985 to organize cooperative expeditions between the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, the IVPP in Beijing, and the Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta with the support of the provincial government of Alberta, the federal government of Canada, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Inner Mongolia Museum. Canadian Airlines International provided transportation to China for Canadian researchers involved in the project. The stated