On October 31, Institute of Urban Environment(IUE), Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) signed Memorandum of Agreement(MoA) with Center for Ecology and Hydrology(CEH), Natural Environment Research Council(NERC). Yong-Guan Zhu, Director of IUE, and Mark Bailey, Director of CEH, signed the MoA on behalf of each organization. Director Zhu indicated that CEH enjoys a high international reputation in the world and its research field involves terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems which plays an important role in policy making, the signing of MoA fully reflects the keen will of CEH to develop the partnership with IUE, which will deepen the understanding between each other and lays a solid foundation for the scientific research in ecological and environmental field. Mark Bailey indicated that Chinese government is forcefully supporting ecological and environmental research these years, CEH will adequately take this opportunity to carry forward related research through the cooperation with IUE, to realize a win-win result.
The MoA defines to establish and implement cooperation including but not limited to the following five areas:
• Developing world class research on terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems
• Improving monitoring and observation systems to support decision making, business and innovation
• Predicting future environment through predictive modeling and data science
• Management of natural resources and control of environmental hazards
• Climate and human impacts and adaptation for ecosystem and urbanization
• And defines the cooperation will be based on the identification and development, as appropriate, of the following opportunities:
• bilateral exchange of research scientists;
• appointment of joint studentships;
• development of collaborative research programmes and bilateral national funding.
On the signing ceremony, Director Zhu issued the certificate to Dr. Hong Li as Honorary Professor of IUE to affirm his contribution of building the communication bridge for IUE and CEH.