The first plenary meeting of the Academic Committee of the China-Greece Belt and Road Joint Laboratory on Cultural Heritage Conservation Technology was held on September 21, 2022 in Jingshengzhai, Jianfu Palace, the Palace Museum in both offline and online forms. The meeting was presided over by Zhao Guoying, Director of the Joint Laboratory and Deputy Director of the Palace Museum, and was attended by eight members of the Academic Committee on person, including Chen Hesheng, Director of the Academic Committee of the Joint Laboratory and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Tie Fude, Deputy Director of the Academic Committee and Research fellow of the National Museum of China, as well as 14 Chinese and foreign members of the Academic Committee online, including Wang Xudong, Deputy Director of the Academic Committee and Director of the Palace Museum, and Professor Demetrios Anglos of the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL-FORTH), Greece.

The site of the meeting of the Academic Committee

To kick off the meeting, Wang Xudong, Director of the Palace Museum, and Spiros Anastasiadis, Director of IESL-FORTH, delivered their speeches on behalf of their supporting institutes of the Joint Laboratory in China and Greece. Then, Chen Hesheng, Director of the Academic Committee of the Joint Laboratory and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, gave a speech on the work and development direction of the Joint Laboratory.

Director Wang Xudong delivered a speech online.

Director Spiros Anastasiadis delivered a speech online.

Academician Chen Hesheng, Director of the Academic Committee, gave a speech.

After that, Qu Liang, Executive Deputy Director of the Joint Laboratory, presented the interim construction progress and key work schedule of the Joint Laboratory with PowerPoint slides, mainly covering the phased achievements of the Joint Laboratory in platform construction, joint research, exchange and sharing, as well as major development directions such as holding international seminars and training courses, setting up open topics, preparing the official website of the Joint Laboratory, and promoting the application and demonstration of related technologies.

Presentation on the interim construction progress and key work schedule of the Joint Laboratory.

Next, members of the Academic Committees delivered their online and offline speeches in turn. They all affirmed the staged achievements of the Joint Laboratory, especially the joint R&D and application research on technical equipment, such as laser cleaning, laser speckle interference, spectral imaging and ultra-high-definition three-dimensional digital acquisition, by using multiple cooperation methods, in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic that swept the world and seriously affected the physical international exchange. The members also provided their valuable opinions on the specific future research and development direction of the Joint Laboratory, suggesting that the regional layout of workstations be further expanded, and more institutes be united in the application for related scientific research projects, the developed equipment be further promoted and applied, and meanwhile talents should be soundly cultivated for cultural heritage conservation, and the cultural heritage conservation should be promoted in China based on the Belt and Road Initiative.

For the future research, with supports from the Palace Museum and IESL-FORTH, and under the guidance of the members of the Academic Committee, the China-Greece Belt and Road Joint Laboratory on Cultural Heritage Conservation Technology will carry out in-depth cooperation with all parties involved in the construction, positively promote the research and development, application and promotion of technical equipment, promote academic exchanges between China and Greece and other European countries in terms of the cultural heritage conservation, and strive to build an innovation cooperation platform featuring mutual trust, integration, inclusiveness, multi-subject participation and multi-disciplinary collaboration, in order to share development experience and scientific research results.

Deputy Director Zhao Guoying, Director of the Joint Laboratory, presided over the meeting.

A group photo of members of the Academic Committee online and offline