Dr. Jinglong Yao, Deputy Director, China - Sri Lanka Joint Center for Education & Research (CSL-CER) visited the NSF on 19th March 2024 and held discussion with Prof. Ranjith Senaratne, Chairman of the NSF and its scientific staff in order to promote and expand collaborative research between the NSF, Sri Lanka and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in a mutually beneficial manner. During the discussion, both parties expressed interest in working on high-priority areas such as climate change, disaster risk reduction and restoration of coral reefs which provide habitat and feeding, breeding, spanning and nursery grounds for around 25% of the marine life in the world.
In order to expand the current collaborative programmes with the NSFC and CAS, Dr. Jinglong proposed to develop partnership with the NSFC branch of the Guangzhou Province as well which is a leading province in China. He added that a meeting with Prof. Guanghao Chen, President of the Guangzhou Branch of the CAS could be arranged on the 25th March which the NSF greatly appreciated. Dr. Shantha Siri, Head, International Affairs Division, Dr. Dilrukshi Ranatunga, Head, Science Communicaton and Outreach Division and Eng. Mahesh Dissanayake, Head, Research Division joined the discussion.