President Chen Jun met Hannele Pokka, vice minister of Finland’s Environmental Administration, and the delegation she led and exchanged ideas with the guests on the cooperation on air pollution control and environmental protection between Nanjing University and Finnish universities such as University of Helsinki during their meeting on May 17 on Xianlin Campus.

The president was in the company of Professor Fu Congbin, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and foreign academician of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Humanities, heads of related research institutes of Nanjing University’s School of Atmospheric Sciences and School of the Environment, and officials from the Office of Science and Technology and Office of International Cooperation and Exchanges.

The delegation was accompanied by Jan Wahlberg, Finnish consul general in Shanghai.

President Chen briefed the quests on Nanjing University’s history, student education and personnel cultivation.

He then recalled the cooperation on environment sciences between Nanjing University and Finnish Universities in recent years, including the internationally joint laboratory on atmospheric and earth system sciences set up by Nanjing University’s Institute for Climatic and Global Changes and School of Atmospheric Sciences and the University of Helsinki, and the cooperation between Nanjing University’s School of the Environment and the University of Eastern Finland within the Sino-Finnish environmental framework.

(Photographed by She Zhijun)

Pokka expressed her great appreciation for the close cooperation on environmental sciences between Nanjing University and Finnish universities, especially for the high-level internationally joint laboratory by teams led by Professor Fu Congbin of Nanjing University and by Professor Kulamla of University of Helsinki and for the significant achievement by the laboratory on East Asian combined air pollution research.

She will work to promote still closer cooperation on environmental reserch between the two sides, she said.

Later, the Finnish delegation visited the Station for Observing Regional Processes of the Earth System (SORPES) in the company of Professor Ding Aijun, executive director of the lab.

Apart from Pokka, the delegation included some directors and department heads of Finland’s Environmental Administration, counselors of the Finnish Embassy in China and representatives of Finnish Consulate General in Shanghai.

Source: School of Atmospheric Sciences; Office of Science and Technology; Office of International Cooperation and Exchanges