March: visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Chengdu

One of the reasons for not blogging so much is that I got entangled in a really nice China program of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences. I'm going to visit four of their projects in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan and Chengdu. They are part of a 15-year program, divided in segments of each five years. The program is now entering its second phase and they are preparing a booklet for their stakeholders to update them on the China program.
From the time-frame you can already conclude that this is not the average quick-fix research China is supposedly focusing on. The basic story is that China is mainly doing applied research and leave the more expensive fundamental research in the corner of the developed countries. Obvious, in some research that is not the case.
So, not only are the projects itself mighty interesting, there is also this bigger question: are these cases of fundamental research exceptions or is our perception of science in China wrong? One of our speakers at Chinabiz Speakers, the outspoken economist Lang Xianping, would actually argue that a developing country like China cannot afford to do fundamental research and should buy affordable innovation off the shelve - or steal it, as an alternative.
We will see. I might not be blogging to much about the projects itself, before they have been published, but for the larger picture, I think it would a a worthwhile investigation.
Anyway, that means I will be on the road and visiting a few places I have not been for a long time and that might be a nice opportunity to meet old and new friends. My schedule looks for the time being like this:

• March 12: Wuhan
• March 14: Chengdu
• March 18: Beijing

Typically I would have some free time in the evening, after saying goodbye to my hosts. Meeting in Shanghai would of course be less constraint by time, although I will be leaving on March 22 for Dubai.