The 3rd Working Meeting of International Joint Research Center of Water Science and Engineering (JRC) was held successfully online and offline at NHRI on 28 October, 2021. Prof. Yun LI, JRC Director and NHRI Vice President, gave a speech at the opening ceremony and summarized at the end of the meeting. Ms. Jinsu WANG, Division Director of Department of International Cooperation, Science and Technology of Ministry of Water Resources, China, participated in the meeting online and gave a speech at the opening ceremony as well.
Prof. Yun LI gave a review of the join research and people-people exchanges of JRC in the past 5 years. With the support and collaboration from NHRI (JRC Host) and JRC partners, JRC had conducted broad joint international researches and talent exchanges. Nearly 100 international projects were collaborated, with a total budget over RMB200 million under the framework of JRC. JRC irregularly sent NHRI young professionals to have academic exchange overseas. About 50 training seminars were held for the officials and professionals from developing countries. Within the framework of JRC, 4 overseas scientific and technological cooperation platforms were built. Nearly 10 large international conferences were organized or co-organized by JRC. Over 40 JRC staff are working for international academic organizations. All the above-mentioned activities have remarkably increased JRC’s international influence. JRC has been successfully turned into a platform for the academic exchange of water science and engineering and a training highland for international professionals in the field of hydraulic engineering.
Ms. Jinsu WANG pointed out that JRC, as a unique state-level international joint research center in Ministry of Water Resources, China, should learn foreign advanced technology and management concepts within the framework of JRC, focusing on the overall goal of the high-quality development of water resources to comprehensively improve the national guarantee capacity of water security in the new stage. Though JRC host and international partners had jointly conducted a number of international research projects and talent exchange activities, it was hoped for JRC to apply innovative methodologies of communication and cooperation in more projects collaboration and to continuously develop its new partnerships all over the world in the context of global COVID-19.
On behalf of JRC partners, Dr. Cor Zwanenburg (Researcher of Deltares), Prof. Ben Gouldby (Technical Director of HR Wallingford), Prof. Johan A. van Dijk (Business Director of IHE Delft), Dr. Valeri Penchev (President of BDCA), Dr. Guoyi Han (Researcher of SEI) and Ir. Patrik Peeters (Director of FHR) presented the collaboration achievements in the framework of JRC and their potential contributions to JRC in the fields of their strong expertise. And all the JRC partners expressed their willingness to positively and actively contribute to JRC’s development. 4 Researchers from NHRI, SEI and BDCA presented the achievements from Horizon 2020 Projects, China-Europe Water Platform, International Cooperation Project of NSFC and Foreign Experts Exchange Program of MoST, respectively. Researchers from National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC), Portugal, Korea Institute of Ocean Science & Technology (KIOST) and Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) participated in the working meeting as observers and showed their interests to conduct collaborations in the framework of JRC.
At the end of the meeting, Prof. Yun LI emphasized in his summary that it was necessary to further promote the construction of a world-class international scientific and technological cooperation base in the field of water science and engineering by adjusting JRC’s priority research fields and business to fit its development and establishing a sharing mechanism of information and experiment facilities among JRC partners. JRC Working Groups would be set up for joint researches and bidding for consulting projects in international market. According to JRC’s development, new JRC partners would be selected from the world-famous international institutions. All JRC partners should exert their professional advantages and specialties for joint researches and people-people exchanges. Based on the advantages of interdisciplinary integration of JRC partners and the high-level research innovation platform, JRC should focus on basic theoretical research, applied basic research and new technology research in water science, water engineering and related fields so as to enhance JRC’s influence in international water science and engineering community.
Over 30 representatives and researchers from Department of International Cooperation, Science and Technology of Ministry of Water Resources, JRC, NHRI Department of International Cooperation, NHRI research departments and JRC partners participated in the working meeting.
