Dr. Shirish Ravan, the head of Beijing office under the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER), and other two delegates paid a visit to IRSA on March 2, 2011. This visit marked the beginning of cooperation between IRSA and UN-SPIDER---a new United Nations programme aiming at providing open space-based solutions to support global disaster management activities.

UN-SPIDER was established in 2006, with the following mission statement: "Ensure that all countries and international and regional organizations have access to and develop the capacity to use all types of space-based information to support the full disaster management cycle". It currently has three offices in Vienna, Bonn, and Beijing. Its Beijing office was established in December, 2010, in order to bolster its operation in Asia.

IRSA plays an important role in large-scale disaster relief operations organized by Chinese government. With its remote sensing technologies, IRSA contributed significantly to the relief work of 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake and 2010 Yushu Earthquake. IRSA also hopes to involve in the global disaster management system, being a partner of UN-SPIDER. On the other side, UN-SPIDER also needs the collaboration from research institutes. “Thanks to the full support from countries and organizations, UN-SPIDER grows up rapidly”, Dr. Ravan said.