"The ALICE project is a co-ordination action between European and Chinese partners with the objective to develop transnational access to large material test infrastructures, with the emphasis on irradiation facilities. By collaboration and exchange between this European project and its Chinese counterpart, both technical as well as administrative and organizational issues, linked to transnational access between Europe and China will be addressed. This approach will be validated by an experiment in a European material test reactor with high flexibility and accessibility, namely the BR2 reactor at SCK•CEN in Mol, Belgium. After this validation, the approach will be transferred to the Chinese project, where transnational access to the Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) will be demonstrated with an irradiation experiment and the transfer of results and materials to the European side.The technical scope of the experiments is set on irradiation of structural materials for advanced nuclear systems, exploiting the maximum fast flux positions in the BR2 reactor, which are of the same order than those expected in the CEFR. The objective is to develop a flexible and cost effective irradiation capsule design method, which can be transferred to CEFR, where technical access conditions are more limited. The development of such capsule will be of mutual benefice for both the European and Chinese side, as reactor operators will dispose of an additional tool for optimal use of the reactor positions available and reactor users will see an improvement of the range of irradiation services offered and a reduction in lead time and cost for material irradiation experiments. The mutual opening of research infrastructures for material irradiation and testing in Europe and China is to evolve into a sustained network of infrastructure that will play an important role in the development of safe and efficient nuclear systems."