The first sessions of the fourth Advisory Committee and Governing Board for the International Knowledge Centre for Engineering Sciences and Technology (IKCEST) were held in Beijing on the afternoon of December 10, 2024, both in person and via video links. Wang Chen, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and Director of IKCEST, along with Chen Jianfeng, Secretary General of CAE, attended the sessions. 

Attending experts fully recognized the work accomplished by IKCEST over the past year. They discussed IKCEST’s future development direction, theming How IKCEST can continuously support and participate in the implementation of UNESCO’s “Decade of Sciences” Initiative, along with How IKCEST can prepare for the upcoming UNESCO evaluation and strengthen its own capacity building through the process, and then put forward following constructive suggestions. With regard to the platform functionality, the sessions highlighted advancing the development of intelligent agents in engineering sciences and technology, integrating AI with avatars, delivering intelligent service solutions, expanding multi-scenario applications, and enhancing multilingual capabilities to improve the platform’s global accessibility. In terms of knowledge services, the focus was on enhancing offerings in disaster risk reduction, intelligent cities, and traditional Chinese medicine. Efforts were also directed toward strengthening open science knowledge services, fostering deeper collaboration among international organizations, scientists, and engineers, and emphasizing the pivotal role of engineering in sustainable development. For the platform operations, the members recommended optimizing communication mechanisms with end users, enhancing user interaction and feedback collection, and continuing to support and promote UNESCO’s open science-related initiatives.

A total of over 80 participants attended the sessions, including Governing Board and Advisory Committee Members Lidia Britol, Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, UNESCO, Qin Changwei, Secretary-General of the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO, Li Guojie, Gao Wen, Wu Cheng, Li Bohu, Wu Zhiqiang, who are all CAE Members, Raj Reddy, CAE International Member and Laureate of Turing Award, Otthein Herzog, CAE International Member and Fellow of National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), Narayanaswamy Balakrishnan, Fellow of Indian Institute of Science, Jan Eloff, Professor of Pretoria University, Han Qunli, Former Director, Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences, Natural Science Sector, UNESCO etc. Present also in the sessions were Hu Shaofeng, Director, Division of Science Policy and Capacity Building, Natural Sciences Sector, along with experts from the IKCEST general and sub-platforms, and the IKCEST secretariat. (Liu Chang)