French scientists say they are looking forward to deepening collaboration with their Chinese counterparts, citing the vast potential for cooperation in this field given their nations' strong infrastructure and commitment to research and development.
Over 1,000 experts from around the world have gathered in southwest China's Yunnan Province to participate in the Tengchong Scientists Forum, which kicked off Friday. The three-day event aims to foster greater international cooperation and exchange in scientific innovation.
For French attendees, the event comes as French President Emmanuel Macron prepares to wrap-up a three-day state visit to China on Friday, where ties between the two sides were in the spotlight.
Bruno Canard, a professor at the Aix-Marseille University in southern France and a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), highlighted the history and traditions the two countries share in the science realm, which opens up the door for exchanges and mutual learning.
"Both China and France have a longer history of mathematics, informatics and science in general, history, tradition. And I think there are a lot of different fields that they can explore together. We have a lot of things to learn from each other and a lot of bonds that could be made on the science field that would benefit every country and the whole world. There are so many other important centers and scientific centers that would benefit from being known in France and to build the concrete bonds with students, program exchanges with researchers," he said.
"Now, people I think would be delighted in fact to go to China, come to China, and see what is going on and make bonds and make common research programs with scientists in China," Canard added.
Meanwhile, Christine Prat, director of operations at the European Virus Archive, also noted how the forum successfully connects leading scientists with investors, and expressed strong support for continuing the vital collaborative work between scientists from the two countries.
"I think there is a really great avenue for collaboration because both our countries have strong national infrastructure for that. So, we have both strong epidemiology scientists and strong national civilian systems. It brings together investors also from the private sector. And I think this synergy is very interesting and obviously like building any collaboration to have scientists working on the same subject would be a good way to pragmatically reinforce those collaborations," she said.
French scientists look forward to closer collaboration with Chinese counterparts
