President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at UCL
19 December 2008
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On Tuesday 16 December 2008, Professor Michael Worton, UCL Vice-Provost (Academic and International) welcomed to UCL the President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Lu Yongxiang, and seven of his colleagues.
The purpose of the visit was to share with UCL staff the details of China's scientific research priorities in the coming years, and to explore possible areas for future collaboration in the fields of information and communication technologies, space science, advanced energy science, nanotechnology, advanced manufacturing and new materials, medicine; advanced industrial biotechnology, modern agricultural sciences, ecology and environmental science, natural resource and marine science.
Professor Moira Yip, UCL's Special Advisor for China, chaired a series of meetings between the delegation and a number of UCL's leading academics who currently have scientific collaborations in China. Professor Yip outlined the extraordinary range and depth of UCL's research links with China, while Professor Steven Caddick explained UCL's research strengths in Chemistry and Nanotechnology, and Professor Peter Mobbs detailed UCL's research strengths in Life Sciences.
Professor Lu and his colleagues then visited the London Centre for Nanotechnology (led by Professor Gabriel Aeppli) and the UCL Chemistry laboratories (led by Professor Geoff Thornton).
At the end of the visit, Professor Yip hosted an evening reception at which UCL staff from a further seven disciplines were able to meet with the Chinese delegation, to discuss their own future plans (and in several cases, to re-affirm long standing personal friendships). These were: Professor Robert A. Brown, Director of UCL Tissue Repair & Engineering Centre; Professor Bernard Buxton, Dean of Faculty of Engineering Sciences; Professor Steve Currall, Head of UCL Management Science and Innovation; Professor Peter Dayan, Director of Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit; Professor Mohan Edirisinghe, Head of UCL Mechanical Engineering; Dr Jie Huang, UCL Mechanical Engineering, Professor Raymond Macallister, Director of UCL Centre for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics; Professor Nick Tyler, Head of UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering.