With the coming of the Chinese New Year, the Centre of Excellence for Water and Environment (CEWE) of CAS-TWAS organized a spring forum for international PhD students and postdoctoral researchers on February 3, 2016. 9 PhD students and postdocs from 6 different countries attended the forum.

Prof. Min Yang, deputy director of RCEES and director of CAS-TWAS CEWE, firstly gave a brief introduction about the vision of CEWE and its major activities in the last year. CEWE has successfully promoted cooperation with some Asian countries including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, etc., and organized a training course for water professionals from the developing countries. He hopes that the international PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in RCEES could play a key role in bridging CEWE with their own countries. The international friends expressed the appreciations for the devoting of CEWE to promoting the advancement of water and environmental science & technology in developing countries, and suggested positively the cooperation areas and needs in their home countries. PhD Student Bekana Hirpa from Ethiopia put forward the suggestion of launching training courses locally in his country. Dr. Rashid Nazir from Pakistan and Dr. Khan Eusufzai from River Research Institute of Bangladesh proposed to establish joint research centers in the future. 

As a platform to promote the cooperation between China and other developing countries in the field of water and environment, CEWE intends to become a home to the international friends in RCEES. The spring forum for international students has become an annual activity for CEWE.