The International Knowledge Centre for Engineering Sciences and Technology (IKCEST) under the auspices of UNESCO held its First Session of the Third Governing Board in Beijing and via Zoom link on September 17, 2021. The meeting was co-chaired by Chen Zuoning, Chair of the Governing Board and Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), and Shahbaz Khan, Director of the UNESCO Beijing Office. Twenty-nine participants attended, including members of the Third Governing Board, Wang Chen, the new Director of IKCEST and Vice President of CAE, as well as experts from the IKCEST platform, the IKCEST secretariat and staff from the Department of International Cooperation at CAE.

The session approved the proposed list of members of the Third Governing Board; gave a briefing on the First Session of the Third Advisory Committee; reviewed and approved the minutes of the Third Session of the Second Governing Board and IKCEST Annual Work Report 2021 (from September 2020 to August 2021); and discussed important topics closely related to IKCEST’s future development.

Participating experts had in-depth discussions and put forward constructive suggestions such as: adding more language versions of the online platform; strengthening cooperation with scientific research institutions at home and abroad to promote joint construction and sharing of platform resources; and developing knowledge products in support of more SDGs, thus contributing to the realization of the United Nations SDGs.

The Governing Board members congratulated IKCEST on its achievements and thanked the Secretariat and expert team for their efforts in the past year.