"Enhanced transnational access to large research infrastructures in Europe and in China is offered to allow the optimal use of the resources in the extremely complex field of severe accident analysis for the existing power plants. This research involves very substantial human and financial resources and, in general, the research field is too wide to allow investigation of all phenomena by any national programme. To optimise the use of the resources, the collaboration between nuclear utilities, industry groups, research centres and safety authorities, at both European and Chinese levels is very important. This is precisely the main objective of the ALISA project, which aims to provide these resources and to facilitate this collaboration by providing large scale experimental platforms in Europe and in China for transnational access.Large-scale facilities offered for access in the project are designed to resolve the most important remaining severe accident safety issues, ranked with high or medium priority by the SARP group for SARNET NoE. These issues are coolability of a degraded core, corium coolability in the RPV, possible melt dispersion to the reactor cavity, molten corium concrete interaction and hydrogen mixing and combustion in the containment. The major aspect is to understand how these events affect the safety of existing reactors and how to deduce soundly-based accident management procedures.Activities within the ALISA project will focus on the large scale experiments under prototypical conditions addressing the remaining R&D issues on severe accident management in light water reactors. ALISA offers a unique opportunity for all parties to get involved in the networks and activities supporting safety of existing and advanced reactors and it allows European and Chinese researches to work together as equal partners so as to arrive at a wider common safety culture."