Recently the situation of international and regional academic exchange and cooperation in South China Botanical Garden (SCBG) is more gratifying than before. The frequency and influence of the exchange increase remarkably.
Since April there have been ten scientists altogether from America, Britain and other countries visiting SCBG. In the beginning of April, a British delegation headed by Prof. Stephen Blackmore, director of the Britain Royal Edinburgh Botanical Garden, visited SCBG in the company of the officers from the British Consulate-General in Guangzhou. These officers made a visit again to SCBG on 17 July, which will lay a foundation for long-term exchange and collaboration between SCBG and British gardens in the future. During this period there were also several other international famous scholars coming to SCBG, such as Dr. Bruce Kirchoff, a developmental biologist from the University of North Carolina, and Prof. Murray McBride, a soil chemist from the Cornell University, USA. Prof. McBride also signed an agreement with one research team of SCBG for longtime cooperation, which furthered the connection between SCBG and famous foreign universities.
There were seven groups of SCBG’s researchers going abroad for academic collaboration and studying in the latest three months. As one of the eight keynote speakers, Prof. Huang Hongwen, director of the SCBG, was invited to deliver a talk at the 12th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific Technical and Technological Advice held in Paris. He was the only speaker in the Chinese delegation. There was another piece of good news for SCBG. The Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) decided to set up an office in SCBG beginning in 2007. Ms. Wen Xiangying, a senior engineer of SCBG, has taken the helm of the newly established China Office of BGCI. In the end of June, she went to the BGCI headquarters in London to sign an agreement and accept the relevant training.
At the same time, SCBG also has enhanced the connection with Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. The monographs, Flora of Macao Vol.2 and Flora of Hong Kong Vol. 1, which were all edited chiefly by the SCBG’s experts, were published in the end of March and the middle of April, respectively. Their following volumes will be published in this or next year. Furthermore, SCBG will probably be invited to be the editor-in-chief for the forthcoming edited Vegetation of Macao and Rare and Endanger Plants of Macao. In the middle of June, Dr. Huang paid a visit to Macao and reached a frame protocol that SCBG will construct an urban forest and eco-environmental research station in Macao jointly with Macao Special Administrative Region Government. In addition, Dr. Zhao Yishan, a scientist coming from Taiwan, visited SCBG on 13 July, and there will be 3 batches of SCBG’s researchers going to Taiwan to make academic exchange and collaborative research in July and October.
There are several reasons, we think, why the academic exchange and cooperation is so frequent recently. First of all, the leaders of SCBG attach high importance of internationally and regionally academic exchange and cooperation. For instance, nearly 20 famous foreign experts have been invited to be the visiting scholars of SCBG alone in this year. Secondly, the influence and status of SCBG have become higher and higher in the international academic circle in recent years, especially after publishing some high-level papers in internationally prestigious journals such as Nature and Science, which attracts more and more attentions of international experts. Thirdly, the landscape, infrastructure, and research conditions in SCBG have been greatly improved via the Co-construction. These not only strengthen the confidence of SCBG’s scientists, but also increase the interest of scholars at home and abroad in visiting SCBG.