Shanghai to host World Laureates Forum in November

More than 60 winners of top science awards including 27 Nobel Prize laureates will participate in the fifth World Laureates Forum scheduled to take place in Shanghai from Nov 6 and 7, the event's organizers announced at a news conference on Thursday.

Around 80 leading scientists from home and abroad including 30 academicians will also participate in the annual event, which will also feature several precursor sessions starting on Oct 30.

As one of the world's largest science and technology forums, the WLA forum was initiated by the World Laureate Association in 2018 "to promote basic science, advocate international cooperation and support younger generations of scientists," according to the forum's official website.

Over the past years, the forum has become an important means to connect the world's top scientists and a significant high-level dialogue platform in the global scientific community.

"Despite the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many leading scientists including six Nobel Prize laureates have confirmed their participation in person," said Yu Licheng, secretary general of the WLA Shanghai Center.

This year's forum, "Science Forward: Create a Bright Future," will kick off with an award ceremony of the inaugural WLA Prize, a science award established last year to recognize and support eminent researchers and technologists worldwide for their contributions to science.

US computer scientist and statistician Michael I. Jordan and German biochemist Dirk Gorlich were announced as the inaugural winners of the prize last month.

Both winners will give a lecture on Nov 7 as part of the forum, Yu said. The forum will also host roundtable discussions attended by top scientists on topics ranging from the future of digital intelligence to the shared future of human health lasting through Nov 7, according to organizers.

Precursor events on Oct 30 will feature an online discussion on sustainable agricultural development, the online Young Scientists' Forum and the "T Conference", an event co-hosted by China Central Television Shanghai which promotes popularization and dissemination of science to teenagers.

On Nov 3 a forum on the cultivation of extinguished engineers co-hosted by Chinese Association of Science and Technology will take place at Shanghai Science Hall, along with another forum focusing on zero-carbon development co-hosted by Tsinghua University, and a "She" forum discussing women's contributions to science's future and development.

Also on Nov 3, the WLA forum will celebrate the opening of its permanent conference site in Lin-gang New Area, the latest addition to the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone where Tesla's Gigafactory is located. The site, which consists of theaters, libraries, science exhibition halls and hotels, is set to become an international base for global communication and cooperation in science and technology for top scientists, organizers said.

The WLA International Joint Laboratories Labs led by Professor Roger Kornberg of Stanford University, 2006 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, will also host several discussions on their latest research and discoveries on Nov 3 and 4.