Sanya to build world laureates workstation for deep-sea technology exchanges

Global science laureates, including 12 Nobel Prize winners, gathered in Sanya for the World Laureates Sanya Forum which kicked off in the coastal city on Aug 22. 

Distinguished attendees also included winners of the Turing Award, the Fields Medal, the Lasker Award, and the Wolf Prize, as well as academicians from the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The two-day forum was under the theme of "Smart Ocean, Future Agriculture", with six sub-forums organized that centered on areas such as marine life and health, smart ocean, the modern agriculture and ecological industry, marine ecology and technology, as well as medical development and smart technologies.

During the forum, the World Laureates Association (WLA) and Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City signed an agreement to build a workstation of the WLA in the coastal city, aiming to offer a platform for communication among top scientists in scientific research and supporting the development of the deep-sea technology industry. 

The WLA has 72 members, according to Randy Schekman, the 2013 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and vice-president of the WLA. He noted that Chinese sciences have seen great development over the years.

He expressed hope that the workstation will be a "virtual or physical home" for Nobel Prize winners and young scientists from around the world.

Developing the blue economy or cleaning and protecting the ocean cannot be achieved by any country alone, Yang Zhifeng, academician from Chinese Academy of Engineering, said. "Only through international cooperation, technology transfer, and knowledge sharing can we come up with policies to promote sustainable growth based on ocean environmental protection," Yang said. 

"We also want to highlight the promotion of new economic growth by coordinating efforts on the land and in the sea, as well as scientifically discuss the key technologies of the ecological restoration at marine estuaries, gulfs, and islands through the forum", Yang added.

James Fraser Stoddart, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016, attends the World Laureates Sanya Forum on Aug 22. [Photo/Chinanews.com]