September 26 to 28 saw the taking place of theScience and China: 2021 Chinese Academician Lecture Tour in Shenzhen. Jointly organized by the Science Popularization and Education Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenzhen local government agencies as well as Shenzhen Bay Laboratory (SZBL), the three-day event of this year delivered Academician Lectures to diverse groups of audience in Shenzhen, aiming for science spirit promoted, science knowledge popularized, and science awareness disseminated.
The launch ceremony was held on September 27, at SZBL, Guangming, Shenzhen. Highly ranking officials from Shenzhen government agencies, as well as academic leaders, experts and scholars, attended the ceremony. Chinese Academician and Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) Vice President Gu Dongfeng chaired the ceremony.
Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government Deputy Secretary-general Li Zhuowen made remarks at the ceremony. He said that improved science literary is an integral part to lift the comprehensive scientific competitiveness of a city. He pointed out that Shenzhen has been aligning equal importance of promoting the science literacy of the city’s general public while seeking greater development in science and innovation. He said that Shenzhen would continue to create favorable environment for science learning and popularization, and called for more suggestions from the academicians in the innovation development of Shenzhen.
Cai Ying, Mayor of the Shenzhen Guangming District, spoke about how the Guangming District’s has been endeavored in supporting the science and innovation development of Shenzhen. She particularly talked about the Guangming Science City and the construction progress had been made.
Yang Yuliang, Academician of CAS as well as the Director of the Science Popularization and Education Committee of CAS, said that the Academician Lecture Tour has been established for 20 years and had received support from multiple government agencies and scientific institutions in China. He hoped that the profile of this event continued to raise and bring higher impact for science learning and popularization across the country.
Before 2021, the event had been hosted for 675 sessions spanning nine years in Shenzhen, receiving over 150,000 participants with more than 100 Chinese Academicians invited. One of the attending Chinese Academician Ma Zhiming retrospected the development of the event in his speech. He noted that the Academician Lecture Tour aimed to not merely make science communicable and accessible to the wider population, but also building a platform for scientific exchange for those high-tech business in our society. He acknowledged on the meaningful contribution the event had made to the nationwide learning and popularization of science.
Wu Yun-Dong, Chinese Academician and Executive Vice Director of SZBL, who also serving as Director of the Shenzhen Academician Center of CAS, introduced the attending academicians of this event for the audience. He said that about 20 Chinese Academicians were invited, each specialized in different scientific areas like organic chemistry, petrochemical engineering, polymer science, physics, cardiology, epidemiology, distributed computing, mathematics, environment and ecology and so forth.
Following the ceremony were two Academician Lectures given by Wang Huaimin and Yu Guirui, respectively featuring software technology and industry, and terrestrial ecosystems and carbon-neutral solutions.
After the morning lecture session, the attending academicians visited the exhibition hall and the research labs of SZBL. In the afternoon, they were to the SZBL Pingshan Translational Medicine Center (PTMC) in Pingshan District as part of the itinerary at the SZBL.
