On 6 April, CEODE Director-General GUO Huadong was invited to the UNESCO Beijing office to meet with UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, Dr. Gretchen Kalonji. They discussed the progress of the International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST) over the past year and the next steps to strengthen cooperation between UNESCO and HIST, which is hosted at CEODE, CAS.　

Firstly, GUO thanked Kalonji for her attention to and support for HIST’s work. He introduced HIST’s current stage of development since its establishment in July 2011 and the preparatory work for the 1st International Workshop on Space Technologies for World Heritage and the 4th International Conference on Remote Sensing in Archaeology (ICRSA4), which will be hosted by HIST and CEODE. Both sides also exchanged views on the overall assessment of the UNESCO category II centre. The preparation of the 35th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE35) was also discussed. 

Kalonji spoke highly of HIST’s progress and expressed that she would seek to participate in ICRSA4 and the 2nd Session of the Governing Board of HIST. She gladly accepted an invitation to write welcoming remarks for the website of ICRSA4. Kalonji showed interest in the 1st International Workshop on Space Technologies for World Heritage and inquired in detail about the workshop’s scale, trainee resources, content, funding, and other matters. She expressed her best wishes for thefuture workofHIST, ICRSA4 and ISRSE35.

Dr. Ramasamy Jayakumar, Programme Specialist at the UNESCO Beijing office, WANG Xinyuan, Deputy Director of HIST, HONG Tianhua, Deputy Director of HIST, and LIU Jie, Deputy Secretary-General of HIST, were also present.

Dr. Gretchen Kalonji presents the UNESCO Science Report to CEODE Director-General GUO Huadong

Representatives from UNESCO and CEODE at the UNESCO Beijing office