Royal Society President Sir Paul Nurse Visits Chinese Academy Of Sciences

President of the Royal Society Sir Paul Nurse gave a lecture at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences during his first official visit to China.

AsianScientist (Sep. 23, 2013) – Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society and 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, gave a lecture at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) Yuquanlu campus on September 12.

Hosted by CAS Vice President Li Jinghai, Sir Paul Nurse was also conferred an honorary professorship by UCAS Vice President Su Gang after the lecture.

During his keynote speech, Sir Paul Nurse made the case for greater collaboration between Chinese and UK scientists and the importance of supporting high quality scientific research. He described the international exchange programs the Royal Society has with China, as well as the Newton Fellowships scheme which is popular among Chinese applicants.

“Chinese and UK science contacts continue to be strong, and will get stronger in the future. The UK is already China’s largest collaborator in Europe, co-authoring more scientific research papers than any other country in the world except the US and Japan,” he said.

Sir Paul Nurse highlighted two global challenges in his speech: climate change and food security.

To address climate change, experts in China and the UK must understand climate better and pursue research that will lead to applications that can generate energy with less greenhouse emissions, he said. Further, scientists must engage with the public and politicians so the best scientific advice can be given, not tainted by economic considerations or ideological opinion, he added.

Food security is the second global challenge he covered in his speech. Agricultural productivity needs to increase, and China is leading the way with integrated approaches to agricultural productivity, having increased cereal production by 32 percent between 2003-2011, which is double the world average, he said.

“The second challenge I want to consider is Food Security. China currently has to feed 22 percent of the world’s population and has just 9 percent of total arable land in the world, whilst the UK has to feed 0.9 percent of the population and has just 0.4 percent of the land.”

The governments of both countries need to be persuaded to increase their funding for both industry and academia, he said.

“I hope we can find new ways and support for closer working between Chinese and UK scientists. We need to up our tempo to persuade our governments to increase their funding for closer working. We need to have more young Chinese researchers working in the UK and more young UK researchers working in China,” he said.

Sir Paul Nurse, who was on his first official visit to China since he took office in 2010, signed a joint statement on promoting scientific and technological cooperation with the CAS.

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