At the 21st Meeting of COMSATS Coordinating Council held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, April 3-4, the application of Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology (TIB), Chinese Academy of Sciences for COMSATS membership was approved by the Council, after the formal nomination of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. TIB officially became the 22nd COMSATS International S&T Centre of Excellence. Prof. Jibin Sun, the Deputy Director General of TIB attended the meeting and made the inaugural presentation.
During his presentation, Prof. Sun briefly introduced TIB’s mission, status quo, infrastructure, innovative R&D organization model, successes in serving the sustainable development of the country, and proposed active engagement mechanisms in the COMSATS network. The Council members were impressed by the achievements the TIB made in the last decade to support the socio-economy sustainable development via biotechnology innovation which is highly in line with the COMSATS’ mission. The Council made the decision to accept TIB as the new member of COMSATS’ Network of Centres of Excellence. Prof. Ashraf Shaalan, the chairperson of the COMSATS Coordinating Council, extended his congratulations on behalf of the Council, and encouraged TIB to strengthen the cooperation with the members and promote the sustainable development in the member countries.
TIB is the second COMSATS member Centre of Excellence in China, after the International Center for Climate and Environment Sciences (ICCES). The participation of TIB in the COMSATS network greatly broadens the TIB’s international cooperation portfolio , bridges the Chinese biotechnology society with the COMSATS member states who are seeking for sustainable solutions, and will create mutual benefits to all the participants. TIB would function as a hub for bilateral/multilateral collaboration in the area of biotechnology to fulfill the commitments proposed by the Belt and Road Initiative as well as Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and promote the synergetic and sustainable development both in China and in the South.
COMSATS is an intergovernmental organization comprising 26 Member States, strives to promote South-South cooperation in the fields of Science and Technology that are most relevant to socio-economic development. A Network of 22 Centres of Excellence affiliated with COMSATS, provides the necessary pool of human resources and scientific infrastructure for undertaking capacity-building programmes, cooperative research and consultancy for the promotion of S&T as primary ingredient of national development plans.
The Coordinating Council of COMSATS comprises the Heads of its 22 International S&T Centres of Excellence. The Council meets once annually. The next meeting will be hosted by TIB in the beautiful costal city Tianjin, China in 2019.