From September 16 to 19, 2018, upon the invitation of the UNESCO Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences, a five-member IKCEST delegation, i.e. Liu Chang, Director of the Division of International Cooperation of IKCEST, Cao Jianfei, Project Manager of IKCEST, Fang Ying from the IKCEST Secretariat, Research Fellow Wang Juanle, Technology Director of the IKCEST Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Knowledge Service System, and Yuan Yuelei, member of the project team, visited the UNESCO Headquarters in France.

The meeting on the progress report of the DRR Knowledge Service System and preparatory meeting for the second International Symposium on the DRR Knowledge Service System was held in Room 2002 on September 17. The delegation conducted in-depth discussions with Miguel CluseneGodt, Director of the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences, Soichiro Yasukawa, Programme Specialist on UNESCO’s DRR projects, and other relevant personnel of the division. A series of consensus was reached between the two sides: on the construction of DRR platform, the UNESCO division expressed the hope to collect more practical cases of disaster risk reduction; on the future planning of DRR, the UNESCO division recognised the continuity of the cooperation agreement between the two sides and commended the three-year plan made by the DRR team. They hoped that efforts could be made to promote work in all areas based on the content of the cooperation agreement; on the Symopisum, they want to add AI-related presentations to enrich the content of Symposium. The UNESCO Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences expressed appreciation to IKCEST for taking part in DRR cooperation with a pragmatic spirit and making solid progress in this field.

The workshop on the construction of the communication and outreach platform of UNESCO sciences sector and on the “UNESCO Development Trends in Scientific Research Based on Bibliometrics Analysis” was held in Room 1002 on September 18. After listening to the report of the IKCEST team, representatives of the UNESCO Headquarters, including the staff members of the Section for Capacity-building in Science and Engineering, Division of Hydrology, Division of Man and the Biosphere, Executive Office of the Natural Sciences Sector etc., commended IKCEST for its work. Rovani Sigamoney of the Section for Capacity-building in Science and Engineering expressed the hope of strengthening cooperation with IKCEST in jointing organizing international science and technology training in Africa. On the communication and outreach platform, IKCEST was told that Ana Persic, who was in charge of this matter, would conduct a video conference with IKCEST after coming to her position to discuss matters related to the construction of the platform, and speed up the MoU-signing process in order to ensure the launch of the platform in 2019. They also expressed strong interest in the “UNESCO Development Trends in Scientific Research Based on Bibliometrics Analysis” presented by IKCEST, and praised the report as innovative and informative. Many of its contents, which UNESCO had not considered before, can help member countries get a deeper understanding of science and the United Nations. They recommended three priority areas, i.e. scientific decision-making, innovation capacity and gender equality, for the IKCEST delegation to consider when conducting researches or establishing new knowledge service systems.

Also during the visit, Mr. Yi Zhijun, First Secretary of Permanent Mission of China to UNESCO, met with the delegation, and provided guiding suggestions on the future priorities of IKCEST.

The visit further strengthened cooperation between IKCEST and UNESCO departments and offered important guidance for the future work of IKCEST. Going forward, IKCEST will assign the task to corresponding personnel of the secretariat and DRR to form specific work plans, and follow through on the cooperation commitments reached with the UNESCO.