Bai Chunli Takes Office As TWAS President

Bai Chunli took office on Tuesday as the president for the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World.

AsianScientist (Jan. 2, 2013) – Professor Bai Chunli (白春礼), the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), took office on Tuesday as the president for the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS).

Bai was elected as president of TWAS at the 23rd General Meeting last September in Tianjin, China, taking over from 72-year-old Brazilian Jacob Palis. He is the first Chinese national to head the organization since it was founded in 1983.

A chemist and nanoscientist by training, Bai was appointed as the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in March 2011, succeeding Professor Lu Yongxiang as the new leader of China’s major think-tank and research institution.

“More talented scientists from the developing world will be elected as TWAS fellows, among whom female scientists will account for a bigger proportion than ever; TWAS will invite more scientific institutes and scientists from developed countries, so as to help the developing world improve their capacity of scientific manpower cultivation and scientific research,” said Bai.

TWAS is an autonomous international organization founded in 1983 in Trieste, Italy under the leadership of the late Nobel laureate Abdus Salam of Pakistan.

It was officially launched by the secretary-general of the United Nations in 1985 to represent the best of science in developing countries. It currently has more than 1,000 TWAS fellows, of whom 174 are Chinese nationals.

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Source: TWAS.
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