Staff workers from China and Laos are doing maintenance work for the China-Laos Railway on December 1, 2022. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By Staff Reporters

Aiming to promote sci-tech innovation and the popularization of science, the fourth Belt and Road International Science Communication Seminar was held online on December 6.

Earlier this year, China released a guideline on strengthening the popularization of science and technology. According to the guideline, a larger scale, a higher level and a closer international communication on science popularization is to be promoted.

Li Yong, deputy director-general of the Department of Science and Technology Talent and Popularization of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said that the statement in the guideline coincides with the idea of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and he looked forward to BRI bringing more vitality to science popularization.

Zhuang Jia, deputy director-general of China Science and Technology Exchange Center, said that the center has been holding Belt and Road International Science Communication activities since 2015, and more than 100 person-times of foreign experts from 19 countries have been invited to China for science popularization activities. The seminar was initiated in 2019 and each year representatives from over ten countries had attended.

Science communication has become an important force to drive sci-tech innovation and commercialization of sci-tech achievements, said Zhuang.

Participants of the seminar also included researchers dedicated to making science more popular.

In terms of such role transformation, Xu Ying, researcher at the Aerospace Information Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that scientific research should be done in a rigorous and creative manner, whereas science communication needs to be conducted in a simple, easy to understand manner. Using plain language is essential when researchers conduct science popularization activities, said Xu.