Maleggapuru Makgoba, Vice Chairman of International Council for Science (ICSU), Carthage Smith, Deputy Executive Director of ICSU, Pierre Ritchie, a member of the Scientific Committee on Urban Health of ICSU, and Jose Siri, Secretary of the Scientific Committee on Urban Health of ICSU, visited IUE from July 10th to 12th for the site visit of the establishment of the International Programme office (IPO).

On the morning of July 11th, after discussing funding, site and staff recruitment of the IPO with Yongguan Zhu, Director General of IUE, the four experts visited the IUE campus. Afterwards, they had a meeting with nine Professors and the Directors of the International Cooperation Office, the Department of Human Resources and Education and the Department of Finance. All IUE representatives expressed their strong support for the establishment of the IPO at IUE and regarded it as a win-win situation. IUE’s rich staff resources and facilities along with the excellent international atmosphere, will guarantee smooth operations for the IPO. Hosting the IPO will improve IUE’s status and influence. On July 12th, the four experts also met with Yingnan Liang, Director of International Liaison Department of China Association of Science and Technology (CAST), and Kai Feng from Bureau of International Cooperation, CAS.

After negotiating with staff from CAS, CAST and IUE, the four panelists spoke highly of the preparation IUE had done for the foundation of IPO and everyone agreed that IUE was an ideal choice for IPO. The experts will give a report to ICSU about the achievements made during the three-day visit and will release a final report within one month.

In addition, a “Health and Wellbeing in the Changing Urban Environment: a Systems Analysis Approach” was presented by ICSU this year in order to deal with the global problems caused by quick urbanization. ICSU responded to offers to host an IPO to manage this programme. IUE submitted application materials in June.