Annual Pujiang forum to explore better lives

The annual Pujiang Innovation Forum, with the theme of "Innovation for A Better Life for Mankind," will run through June 4. It will explore how science and technology can better serve people's lives and promote a more open, inclusive, balanced and win-win innovation landscape.

This year's forum aims to deepen regional and international cooperation in science and technology.

The United Arab Emirates, this year's Country of Honor, is known for its oil, aviation, tourism and financial services sectors. In the post-oil era, it is now shifting to science and technology.

In 2018, the UAE signed a memorandum of understanding with China under its Belt and Road Initiative, the first Gulf country to form a strategic partnership with China. The two countries have found cooperation potential in chemical engineering, infrastructure, new energy and tourism. Dubai in the UAE has formed a successful partnership with China and, in particular, with Shanghai over the World Expo.

Chongqing, the only municipality in west China, is this year's City of Honor.

It has built itself as the nation's key central city, economic center in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the nation's major advanced manufacturing center, and western China's financial center and transport hub.

It has clusters of electronic information and automobile companies as well as advanced big data and intelligent innovation.

Leading academic publisher Springer Nature is to hold a "Future Science" forum. It will focus on neural mechanism of cognition, promote new technologies that facilitate the study of brain structure and function, as well as explore more applications in brain diseases and brain-like intelligence.

The plenary session will be held at 2pm today at the Dongjiao State Guest Hotel.

One of the special events, a closed-door meeting of young scientists, will be held after the plenary session. The other, Inno-Match Expo, also known as the Global Tech-Matching Fair, opened at the Shanghai Exhibition Center on Monday.

Of the other events, one major session is Yes Summit, held with the Xplorer Prize, that invites young scientists at home and abroad to exchange ideas.

The Xplorer Prize was initiated by Pony Ma, Tencent's chairman and CEO, and 14 scientists in 2018 to support full-time Chinese mainland-based scientists under 45 in fundamental science and cutting-edge technologies.

During the forum, more than 150 people from international institutes, top universities and research centers in over 20 countries and regions will discuss topics including urban digital transformation, cutting-edge technologies, health care and talent education.

There will be speeches by Bernard Lucas Feringa, a Dutch synthetic organic chemist, Steven Inchcoombe, chief publishing officer at Springer Nature, Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, and Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet.

There will also be contributions from neuroscientist Mu-ming Poo, Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, Chinese medical scientist Chen Wei and other renowned scientists.

The forum features a plenary session, two special events and more than ten sub-forums and sessions.