Opening Speech of CPS Fall Meeting 2022
2022-11-24
Embrace A Mass of Small Streams to Be A Vast Sea
Prof. Jie Zhang
President of Chinese Physical Society
Distinguished guests, dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, faculty members, and fellow students,
Good morning!
The 2022 Chinese Physical Society (CPS) Fall Meeting is held today as scheduled! Against the backdrop of waves of COVID-19 infections raging across China, it is such a precious opportunity for so many old and new friends to gather here to share their research findings and joys. On behalf of the Chinese Physical Society, let me first express my heartfelt thanks to Southern University of Science and Technology, the organizer of the 2022 CPS Fall Meeting, for its unremitting efforts to make this grand event happen, since it has been eagerly awaited by physics professionals in China. I'd also like to extend my warmest welcome to all the guests, scholars, faculty members and fellow students here today. Your participation is the best acknowledgement of our hard work.
Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, physics research in China has encountered momentous challenges, including hinderances in cross-border research cooperation, increasing costs of scientific equipment, and bottlenecks in key technologies. As a time-honored academic organization under the leadership of the China Association for Science and Technology, CPS has united its members and physicists to expand channels of exchanges, create new ways of communication, and vigorously promote academic exchanges and cooperation both nationally and internationally on the basis of equality and openness. As a result, a sophisticated network of national and international academic exchange with wide coverage and high interaction has been formed, with the CPS Fall Meeting as the core, academic conferences as the main body, and collaborations among international academic organizations as the assistance. So far, the CPS Fall Meeting has become the largest and most influential academic event in China's physics community, with the number of participants gradually growing from over 100 people at the first conference to the current scale of more than 5,000 people, while featuring more than 20 sessions and almost 500 keynote speakers. Last year, the number of registrants for the CPS Fall Meeting hosted by Lanzhou University reached 6,050 high.
This year, CPS Fall Meeting continues to promote cooperation with physical societies from other countries despite the complicated international situations. We joined hands with physical societies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan to host the Large Scientific Facilities Session, which introduces the latest progress and development of research in related fields in order to facilitate interdisciplinary exchanges and cooperations on large scientific facilities internationally. As an important article by General Secretary Xi Jinping Strive to Become the World's Major Science Center and Innovation Highland reads, "science and technology are global and contemporary, and the development of science and technology must have a global perspective; we must embrace a mass of small streams to be a vast sea", CPS has always maintained a positive and optimistic attitude towards scientific exchanges and communications concerning the common interests of all mankind, and has consciously undertaken the historical mission of bringing new impetus to global scientific exchanges.
At the same time, CPS will make more effort to build an academic communication and exchange ecology marked by fair cooperation, inclusiveness and extensiveness, and strive to make the CPS Fall Meeting a platform that promotes free communication across all branches of physics, facilitates interdisciplinary innovation, and shares the latest progress and development in research. To this end, we will continue to improve the academic quality and internationalization level of the conference, grow the Conference Academic Advisory Committee and the team of session convenors, attract more physicists with international influence to participate, and produce more forward-looking reports to lead the physics community. Meanwhile, we endeavor to organize the conference in a more specialized, informationized and diversified manner, draw on advanced operation models, drum up support from government, universities, research institutes, enterprises and public institutions, and accumulate experience in the management and operation of major academic conferences, so as to continuously improve the experience and satisfaction of participants.
Today's conference has brought together a large group of scientists with passion, dreams, courage, wisdom, and willingness to engage in academic exchanges, discussions and communication freely and honestly. Seeing this, I cannot help but think that our humble dream has finally come into fruition. More than two decades ago, a group of ambitious young physicists, with passion and a strong sense of responsibility, inspired by the expectations of their predecessors, were determined to create their own high-level and high-impact academic conference. They were committed to putting in place a platform where all physicists could share their research success.
After 20 years of development, I feel gratified and proud that I have participated in and witnessed the development of the CPS Fall Meeting from nothing to massive success. Now my generation of young physicists back then have grown old. We will pass the baton to the next generation of physicists, hoping that more young physicists will carry on the honorable and proud mission. I believe that the CPS Fall Meeting will surely show stronger vitality because of your participation.
One day, the CPS Fall Meeting will become a prominent name card of China's physics community and play an increasingly important role in international scientific and technological exchanges and cooperation. The day will come when the CPS Fall Meeting stands alongside other leading international conferences, including the APS March Meeting, as one of the most eagerly awaited international gatherings for physicists around the world. By then, physicists from all over the world will be looking forward to coming to China to meet with their counterparts at the CPS Fall Meeting, where they will exchange the latest scientific achievements and share the most advanced science and technology progress. Just like a Chinese poem says, "let's raise our glasses and toast to our joyful gathering."
CPS has experienced ninety years of splendid development. I believe that the commitment of serving physicists wholeheartedly is the inexhaustible drive for CPS; as long as we stay ture to the academic nature and core mission of our organization, and firmly grasp the direction of staying on the frontiers in science and technology to meet the major needs of the country, CPS and the CPS Fall Meeting will brave the wind and waves and firmly strive ahead.
Dear experts, scholars, faculty members and fellow students, let us work together vigorously and determinedly to explore the mysteries of basic science, lead the development of science and technology, and make more contributions in achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the common progress of human civilization.
Finally, I wish the conference a complete success. I wish you all good health, and an enjoyable and fruitful exchange. Thank you!
