Agreement signed for the establishment of Sino-French Joint Laboratory of Soil Environment
Source: School of Environmental Science and Technology
Written by:Wang Shizhong
Edited by: Wang Dongmei
A cooperation agreement for the establishment of the Sino-French Joint Laboratory of Soil Environment (hereinafter referred to as “Joint Lab”) was signed by Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA, France) and University of Lorraine (UL, France) on December 2, 2015 in Nancy, France. The School of Environmental Science and Engineering (SESE) at SYSU and the Laboratory of Soil and Environment (LSE, jointly established by INRA and UL) at UL are the supporting institutes for the actualization of the Joint Lab, respectively, for the Chinese and French sides.
Led by Ms. Meiling Dong, director of International Scientific Cooperation Office, SYSU, and Professor Rongliang Qiu, dean of SESE, SYSU, a Chinese delegation consisting of 11 persons participated in the signing ceremony. The French representatives attending the ceremony included Professor Pierre Mutzenhardt, president of UL, Dr. Robert Habib, vice director in charge of international affairs from INRA, Professor Frédéric Villiéras, vice president of UL, Dr. Guy Richard, chief of INRA’s Environment and Agronomy Division, Dr. Jean Louis Morel, professor of LSE, UL and chairman of SUITMA, ISSS and Professor Christophe Schwartz, director of LSE, UL.
Signing ceremony for the establishment of Sino-French Joint Laboratory of Soil Environment (December 2, 2015, Nancy, France), signatory representatives (from left to right in the front row): Ms. Meiling Dong from SYSU, Professor Pierre Mutzenhardt from UL and Dr. Guy Richard from INRA; witnesses (from left to right in the back row): Professor Christophe Schwartz from UL, Professor Rongliang Qiu form SYSU, Dr. Robert Habib from INRA and Professor Jean Louis Morel from UL.
The establishment of international cooperation platform is one of the important goals in SESE’s "13th Five-Year Plan" for its discipline construction. Ever since 2005, SESE has established a stable bilateral cooperative research relationship with LSE, UL. In September 2011, a memorandum of understanding was signed by both parties for the creation of the Sino-French Joint Laboratory of Soil Environment. In 2014, a letter of intent to jointly establish the Joint Lab was further signed. The Joint Lab was acknowledged as an international collaboration platform and went under incubation by the Department of Education of Guangdong Province in April 2012. Furthermore, in July 2015, the Joint Lab gained financial support in the form of an international scientific cooperation project initiated by Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology. In recent years, both SESE, SYSU and LSE, UL continuously cooperated on holding international workshops, applying for joint international projects, normalizing scholar visits, training y have oung scientists, jointly supervising post-graduates and constructing international research platform, on the basis of the framework of the Joint Lab. These collaborations are fruitful and in depth by now. The establishment of the Joint Lab will lay a solid foundation for bilateral, long-term cooperation in the research field of soil contamination and remediation, which will further improve the academic reputation of SYSU worldwide, and contribute to the incubation of researchers with a global horizon in the field of contaminated soil remediation.
The delegation from SYSU also attended the 8th Sino-French Workshop on Contaminated Soil Remediation which was jointly held by SYSU, INRA and UL from November 30 to December 2, 2015 in Nancy, France.
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