CAE President Zhou Ji led a delegation to the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS) Convocation 2016 in London upon the invitation of the Royal Academy of Engineering of the UK, and delivered a report at the conference from September 12 to September 16, 2016. On the margins of the conference, President Zhou also had bilateral meetings with the leaders of the relevant national academies of engineering.

Established in 1978, CAETS is the most impor t ant academic organization in the international engineering community. The current CAETS membership consists of the engineering academies from 26 major countries, including the Chinese Academy of Engineering. With the aim of promoting world economic prosperity and social well-being through the advance of engineering technologies, CAETS provides the exchange mechanism for the academies of engineering and technological sciences from major countries to find common solutions to the important issues in the overlapping areas of science, technology and society. The members can exchange and share experience and technologies through CAETS to solve the issues of engineering technologies they face in their countries and increase the well-being of their people.

The CAETS Convocation 2016 is hosted by the Royal Academy of Engineering of UK and attended by 23 member academies. The program of this year’s Convocation included the academic workshop under the theme Engineering a Better World, the Board of Directors Meeting, the Energy Committee Meeting and the Expert Committee Meeting of the CAETS Knowledge Sharing Platform.

The IKCEST and CAE representatives attended the Expert Committee Meeting of the CAETS Knowledge Sharing Platform on the afternoon of September 12. The meeting was also attended by the expert committee members from the engineering academies of the US, the UK, Japan and Mexico. The IKCEST representative introduced the background, goals, vision and guiding principles of the platform, shared with the audience the initial plan for the structure, functions and contents of the system, and made an online demonstration of the services provided to the users on the platform. Experts attending the meeting commended CAE’s dedicated effort on this work and the progress made in the initial stage, and discussed the issues concerning the input, safety, target users, key functions and future workflow of the platform. Due to the absence of the CAETS Secretary, who is going to be leading and coordinating the efforts after the meeting, the participants decided to wait till the arrival of the new Secretary to push this work.

The visit of the CAE delegation has further boosted its influence in the CAETS network and strengthened its cooperation and exchanges with other CAETS members. It has also demonstrated the willingness and ability of CAE to build a knowledge sharing platform for all CAETS member countries and played a positive role in promoting future CAETS cooperation.