The 2018 Meeting International Advisory Board (IAB) meeting of IPP-CAAS was held on November 5-8 in Beijing, China. Seven internationally well-known scientists in the field of plant protection served as the 2018 IAB members: Dr. Jan Leach, Asso-ciate Dean for Research at College of Agriculture, Colorado State University and current President of the International Society of Plant Pathology; Dr. Steven Lom-mel, Director of the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service, North Carolina State University; Dr. Ulrich Kuhlmann, Executive Director of Global Operations at Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI), and Co-Director of CA-BI-MARA Joint Laboratory for Bio-safety; Dr. XIA Jingyuan, Secretary General of the International Plant Protection Commission, and Food and Agriculture Organiza-tion; Dr. ZHU Jiankang, Director of Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of USA; Dr. LAN Yubin, Director and leading scientist of National Center for Interna-tional Collaboration Research on Precision Agricultural Aviation Pesticides Spraying Technology, and Academician of European Academy of Humanities and Arts; and Dr. LIU Tongxian, National Distinguished Professor and Dean of the College of Plant Health and Medicine, Qingdao Agricultural University. The main purpose of this meeting was to conduct a diagnostic evaluation for the mid-term progress of the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (ASTIP) of IPP-CAAS.
Dr. ZHOU Xueping, DG of IPP-CAAS first made a general report on the mid-term progress of the ASTIP of IPP-CAAS. Then, each of the 17 chief scientists made progress report for their innovation teams, re-spectively. All talks were pre-sented in English, followed by questions and answers between the IAB members and the chief scientists. More than 100 faculty members attended the meeting. Afterwards, the IAB members gave rig-orous evaluations to each innovation team on three aspects including research direc-tions and goals, research achievements, and future plans.
The IAB members were impressed with the leading role of IPP in the field of plant protection and its role in guarantee for national food security and agricultural safety in China. Furthermore, these experts pointed out that IPP as a research institute with equal emphasis on both basic research and applied research, needed a more innovative evaluation system. It was necessary to change the evaluation situation dominat-ed only by “SCI” and “impact factors”, and establish more diversified evaluation cri-teria. For pesticides and biocon-trol products with potential for production and application, it was necessary to support with reliable experimental data and actively promote the transfor-mation of scientific research results. At the same time, under the situation of China's rising international status, agricultural scientific researchers should carefully examine the responsibilities and original intention of their work, focus on serving the farmers and society, and enhance the sense of re-sponsibility and mission of the society. During the meeting, the Youth Committee of IPP-CAAS organized a luncheon to exchange and interact with the IAB members. In the relaxed atmosphere, experts provided valuable opinions on the growth and development of young people, visits and exchanges, team positioning, etc. These ac-tivities offered major benefits to all the young scholars who participated.
IPP was the first batch of institutes chosen to participate in the ASTIP of CAAS start-ing in 2013. After the first phase (2013-2016) of development, 17 innovative teams have been established and entered the second phase of the program. The 2018 IAB meeting of IPP-CAAS was important to gain international experience and guide for the future development of the innovation teams and the institute. In addition, the meeting was one of the major activities to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Reform and Opening-up of China.
