International Knowledge Centre for Engineering Sciences and Technology ("IKCEST")and the Earth Science and Geological Disaster Risk Reduction Department of the Natural Sciences Sector of UNESCO held an international video conference to preliminarily discuss future cooperation between the two sides on October 21, 2015.
Participants from the Chinese side in the video conference included Yi Jian, Deputy Director-elect of IKCEST, Du Yang, officer from UNESCO Beijing Office, Wang Juanle, Director of the Resources and Environmental Data Centre of the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Deng Li, Senior Engineer of the National Meteorological Centre, Xie Wenjun, Senior Engineer of the Information Centre of the Ministry of Water Resources, Cao Xuejun, Platform Team Leader of IKCEST, Liu Chang, Fu Zhijie and other staff members from the IKCEST Secretariat. Participants from the UNESCO side included programme specialists Alexandros K. Makarigakis, Soichiro Yasukawa, Jair Torres, Irina Pavlova, Florian Dierickx, Margherita Fanchiott and Xiaoning Wu of the Earth Sciences and Geol-hazards Disaster Risk Reduction Department of the Natural Sciences sector of UNESCO.
On behalf of IKCEST, Dr. Cao Xuejun made a presentation on the current status of system platform construction at IKCEST, with emphasis on the specialized geological, hydrological and metrological databases which were closely related to the disaster risk reduction. Subsequently, programme specialists Alexandros K. Makarigakis from the Natural Sciences Sector of UNESCO also introduced to the Chinese side UNESCO's work on the disaster risk reduction worldwide.
The two sides conducted in-depth discussions on issues of mutual concern and reached a couple of agreements. Both sides agreed that after the meeting they would further digest and understand the basic information introduced by the other side so as to enhance mutual understanding, which was the main purpose of the first conference. IKCEST agreed to provide UNESCO with its existing data resources and links as soon as possible after the conference. As a resulet, UNESCO could gain a preliminary understanding of the existing databases at IKCEST. In addition, the Chinese experts generally believed that the way of taking geological disasters in a region in China for case study would be suitable for UNESCO's research paradigm and needs, which were relevant trial projects or geological disaster real time early warning system building may be launched as an entry point.
Both sides agreed that future cooperation between the two organizations would have broad prospects and wider space for development and that they would work out detailed plan for cooperation after the conference based on their understanding and generalization of existing information and more expert discussions. The two sides promised to hold further video conferences to continue relevant discussions.
Comment list ( 1 )
Great Meeting. However, I wander how to join it.
