Li Deren, the 75-year-old academician of Chinese Academy of Science and Chinese Academy of Engineering accepted the 2014 National Science and Technology Progress Award and the Innovation Team Award on behalf of his team---WHU’s Earth Observation and Navigation Technology Team on the National Annual Science and Technology Awards Conference held on January 9th 2015. The 3 leading academicians of the winning team: Yang Yuanxi, Li Deren, Liu Jingnan joined an exclusive interview with the journalist from WHU.
Journalist: Congratulations on winning the National Science and Technology Progress Award! We all feel very delighted and proud. I suppose you must be even more excited. How do you feel about winning this award?
Li Deren: I feel deeply honored. Our team has worked very hard over the years to meet our country’s major strategic demands and deal with the challenges in global scientific development. We went through various challenges successfully, which in effect, culminated with earning this award. Each and Every member of our team is exhilarated. As scientists, it is our responsibility to build on brilliant work and to serve our country’s demand.
Liu Jingnan: The award is an honor of our team for we have realized the dream of generations who have devoted themselves to such disciplines as remote sensing, satellite, surveying and mapping, and navigation at WHU. This could even be the dream of many people in the Chinese navigation and remote sensing research community.
Journalist: WHU is the second university under the administration of Ministry of Education after Tsinghua University to win this award. What are the reasons behind WHU’s success this time?
Yang Yuanxi: I believe there are several indicators for evaluating a national scientific innovation team: a strong driving force for innovation, a dynamic environment for innovation, abundant innovative output and an efficient application of innovation output. The WHU team has embraced all the features mentioned above. In addition, the team is certainly advanced and fruitful in both theory and practice, evidenced by its active presence in domestic and international academic activities with innovative products. This helps the Chinese surveying and mapping industry to withdraw from totally relying on foreign products and facilitates its progress. It is for these reasons that our innovation team has won the recognition from the industry and the government. The WHU team really deserves the honor.
Journalist: The team has garnered many international innovative achievements. What are the main reasons?
Yang Yuanxi: It excels in discipline integration. The team deals with a wide range of disciplines, but it integrates them in an organic and innovative way. A typical example is the mobile mapping system where such technologies as navigation positioning, laser, scanning, aviation survey and remote sensing image measurement are used to integrate various data onto one platform in producing dynamic mapping products to serve urban construction.
Li Deren: We have a very clear target---to reach a world leading level and cater for national major demands. For a long time, some core components in earth observation, satellite navigation and other fields have been monopolized by the West. We are determined to develop our own top-notch products, so we value original innovation and our scientific research is conducted with a clear and grand aim in mind.
Liu Jingnan: Our team has a very efficient coordinating mechanism that guarantees a clear division of responsibilities to enable members a full display of their strengths.
Li Deren: Indeed. The team work is of critical importance. For example, Liu Jingnan, Gong Jianya and I are responsible for remote sensing, GIS and navigation respectively, but together we make an integrated team.
Journalist: What are your best practices in team building and talent cultivation?
Li Deren: I think the most important practice is to guide young people to focus on the cutting-edge scientific issues. We should leave to them the most recent, difficult and challenging problems while also providing incentives to make innovations. Of course, we also need to give young people guidance, care and the opportunity to improve.
Liu Jingnan: In terms of talent cultivation, we embrace an open and inclusive spirit. At the same time, we bring in talents overseas and encourage our outstanding students to go global. It is also important to accept students’ mistakes. We guide them through mutual commutation.
Journalist: Winning this award bears great significance on the team itself and the development of relevant disciplines and even WHU in general. So, in which aspects is the award the most meaningful?
Yang Yuanxi: To begin with, surveying and mapping, navigation and geographical information are a new interdisciplinary discipline that is young and dynamic. Besides, it can guide the interdisciplinary integration of the various disciplines such as surveying and mapping, navigation and geographical information system. Moreover, it leads and facilitates the advancement of the social production technology. Last, it serves as an example for other domestic disciplines and academic groups in talent cultivation, scientific topic selection and project initiation as well as producing a considerable scientific output and service upgrading.
Li Deren: The award is meaningful for WHU and China’s surveying and mapping, navigation and geographical information field. It is also a positive response to the national projects undertaken by us. It will further encourage us to do better in the future.
Journalist: What are your expectations for the future development of the team?
Yang Yuanxi: I hope that the WHU team could strengthen communication with other innovation teams and make an even greater contribution to the discipline development and talent cultivation in the science field of Chinese surveying and mapping.
Liu Jingnan: I expect the team to build on their success, exceed the previous generations, outperform themselves and outshine the era.
Li Deren: We are in constant exploration. We are now undertaking several world-leading programs. Our team is one that never ceases to seek for improvement and advancement. We will redouble our effort to further enhance our earth observation and navigation team to make it better, faster and smarter so that it can help prosper the country and benefit the people. Our motto is “right time, right place, right information to the right person”.
(Rewritten by Xueshuang Liu, edited by Diana & Sijia Hu)
