The 130th IKCEST Training Programme for Silk Road Engineering Science and Technology Development was held from Dec.15th to Dec.31st, 2022. It was co-hosted by the International Knowledge Centre for Engineering Sciences and Technology (IKCEST) under the Auspices of UNESCO and Xi’an Jiaotong University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and was organized by IKCEST Silk Road Training Base. 163 trainees from 42 countries such as Indonesia, Iran, India, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Cambodia participated in this training programme. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this training programme is held online. 

Themed on Frontiers in Medicine, the following lectures are included: The future of psychotherapies. Perspectives from low- and middle-income countries, Drug discovery for ocular angiogenic diseases, State-of-the-Art Animal Models of CardioVascular Disease, Studying biology using genetic perturbations, Comprehensive Management for Diabetes and Experience in Preventive Medicine in Japan, Updates of SARS-CoV-2: Antiviral strategies, Case analysis: the important role of clinical communication skills of medical practitioners in disease diagnosis and treatment and etc.

The training offers one-stop services such as platform registration, course selection, online learning, questionnaire survey, online examination and certificate download. A combined approach of video-on-demand (shortened as VOD) study and online discussion were employed in the online training. The trainees were given the opportunity to make their own learning plan and arrange their learning process accordingly all by themselves.

Up till recently, 130 sessions of IKCEST Training Programmes for Silk Road Engineering Science and Technology Development have been held by Silk Road Training Base, training more than 11,000 foreign students and staff from export-oriented Chinese companies from over 100 countries. This training programme plays an important role in cultivating talents and promoting the Belt and Road Initiative. In the Meanwhile, it also made important contributions to the promotion of cultural, scientific, technological and educational exchanges as well as the economic and social development of European, Asian and African Belt-road countries and regions.

The International Knowledge Centre for Engineering Sciences and Technology (IKCEST) is a category II centre under the auspices of UNESCO and was established in June 2014 in Beijing. Chinese Academy of Engineering is responsible for the operation and management of the IKCEST. IKCEST aims to provide knowledge-based services at a global scale in the form of consultancies, scientific research and education for policy-makers and engineering science and technology professionals in the world, with particular reference to the developing countries. In February 2017, based in Xi’an Jiaotong University, IKCEST Silk Road Training Base was established, aiming to train more engineering science and technology talents, and enhance the capacity building in developing countries.