Sept. 12th, the Second China-UK High-Level Cooperation & Advanced Functional Materials Forum, co-organised by Sichuan University and theDepartment of Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs of Sichuan Province, was held in Chengdu.Peng Yu, Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of Sichuan Provincial People’s Congress, Academician Xie Heping, President of Sichuan University,Nick Miles, Pro-Vice Chancellor ofthe University of Nottingham, and William Gillin, Director of the Materials Center, Queen Mary, University of London, attended the opening ceremony and delivered their respective speeches. More than 200 people, including well-known experts and scholars at domestic and abroad, representatives of government agencies and enterprises attended the forum. Yan Shijing, Vice President of Sichuan University presided over the opening ceremony.
Xie Heping, on behalf of Sichuan University, pointed out in his speech that Materials Science is a traditional advantageous discipline of the University; by leveraging its multidisciplinary advantages, the University has formed such national key disciplines as Materials Science and Engineering, Atomic and Molecular Physics and so on, and has established a number of high level research institutions like the State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering; in 2012, it founded in collaboration withQueen Mary, University of London, the "Sino-British Materials Research Institute", built an international high-caliber research team, and has achieved a fruitful research results. He claimed that, Sichuan University will take this forum as an opportunity to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with international first-class experts and scholars, and strive to build its Materials Science into a world-class discipline, and pace up the construction of a world-class university.
Peng Yu, Deputy Director of the Standing Committee of Sichuan Provincial People’s Congress made a speech. He indicated that, based on a good foundation for exchanges between Sichuan and Britain, the two sides will further cooperation in science and education; and in the "industry-university-production cooperation" system of the new material industry in Sichuan Province, Sichuan University plays an important role, has accumulated a solid scientific research strength in the field of advanced functional materials in particular. In addition, he expressed Sichuan’s desire to take advantages of Sichuan University and other institutions and research institutes to strengthen joint innovation, enhance cultural and educational exchanges, and deepen bilateral friendly cooperation with Britain.
Nick Miles, Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, UK, noted that the University of Nottingham treasures the cooperative relations with Sichuan University, and hoped that both sides could strengthen exchanges and mutual trust in advanced functional materials and some other domains, and give full play to their respective advantages to build a global knowledge exchange center.
William Gillin, Director of the Materials Center, Queen Mary, University of London, briefly introduced the historic overview and research cooperation of the Sino-British Materials Research Institute, and emphasized that the transnational research cooperation will play an increasingly greater role in the fields of computers, telecommunications, clean energy and materials science.
During the keynote speeches made by experts, 9 celebrated domestic and foreign scholars including Jiang Lei, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peter Littlewood,Fellow of the Royal Society briefed the attendees about the cutting-edge research results in the field of advanced functional materials, centering on the subjects such as “Smart interfacial material: from super-wettability to binary cooperative complementary system”, “Tuning of phase transitions in oxide material”, among others.
As one of the main sub-sessions of the "2017Western China Overseas High Tech and High Talents Conference", the Second China-UK High-Level Cooperation & Advanced Functional Materials Forum is intended to share the latest research results and academic frontier knowledge of advanced functional materials, and explore the practical application and development prospects of such materials.
