DICP is now an internationally well connected institution. Today, our faculties are now playing active roles in about 100 international academic communities, including council members of organizations, conference chairmen, members of academic committee, and editors of top S&T journals. In the past five years, nearly 2,000 foreign scientists have visited DICP and more than 1,000 of our staffs and students have gone abroad for international conferences and research collaborations. Foreign scientists have included Nobel Laureates Ei-ichi Negishi, Kurt Wüthrich, and Richard J. Roberts along with many internationally reknown scientists and scholars. DICP is also one of the founder of the Asia-Pacific Catalysis Conference, formally established at the 13th International Catalysis Meeting.

 

Each year, DICP provides more than RMB 500,000 in travel grants for international exchanges, visiting foreign scholars for long- and short-term cooperation. Since 2006, the Institute has spent RMB 1 million annually to support the DICP Symposium Program to promote international collaborations. These funds have allowed us to hold 49 research symposiums on topics ranging from catalysis, molecular reaction dynamics to biology. It has been well-received in the international community. In addition, these symposiums have helped to promote DICP’s international visibility and image, and is becoming an internationally recognized conference series. DICP has also hosted the “International Conference on the Frontiers of Catalytic Science and Technology for the 21st Century” and the “International Association for Catalysis Study,” two high-level meetings in the field. DICP is currently preparing to host the “16th International Catalysis Meeting.”

 

In an effort to promote international cooperation, DICP is exploring partnerships with internationally well established research institutions and companies. We have already setup collaborations, and have initiated projects with companies that include General Motors, Corning, TOTAL, UOP, ADM, Eli Lilly, Invista, BP, BASF, BAYER, SAMSUNG, LG, TOPSOE, ITOCHU, and SABIC. In addition, DICP has strong collaborations with many international institutions, such as the French National Scientific Research Center, the Queen’s University Belfast, and the Netherland’s Association for Applied Science, on respective projects that include Sino-Franco Joint Energy Laboratory, the DICP-Queen’s University Ionic Liquid Laboratory, and the Sino-Dutch Laboratory for Chemical Biology. In total, DICP has set up 9 joint research centers. With industry, we have built with BP the BP-CAS “Clean Energy Facing the Future” center. This is the 4th global research center supported by BP. The other three centers are in Cambridge University, Princeton University, and University of California at Berkeley. In the past10 years, BP and DICP have forged a strong collaboration and achieved remarkable results in S&T development of clean energy. In 2007, the joint “DICP-BP Energy Innovation Laboratory (EIL)” was also inaugurated. In 2011, EIL officially began its operation with over 2,000 m2 of lab space and 10 BP managers and technological staffs.