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China awards Shin-ichi Kurokawa for his international scientific cooperation

February 2, 2012

Dr. Shin-ichi Kurokawa, professor emeritus of KEK, is one of three international scientists to have been awarded the 2011 award for International Scientific Cooperation,the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced on 18 January.

This award is given to honor eminent foreign experts who make outstanding contributions to facilitating cooperation with CAS in science and technology. The award is given to encourage more efforts that will strengthen CAS’s innovation capacity and lead to improvements in its research performance, education and training, management, and reputation in the international scientific community.

Kurokawa has visited China 58 times, fostering a cooperative relationship in accelerator science between China and Japan. Since the eighties, he has been actively promoting academic cooperation and exchanges in science and technology, collaborating with Chinese researchers at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the Institute of Modern Physics.

In 1999, he organized the first major Asian accelerator school held in China, and carried it to a successful conclusion. In 2000, he initiated a collaborative programme between the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and CAS. This programme was continued for 10 years, involving many institutions and universities in China and Japan.

“Through this programme, over 800 scientific visits were made, and many conferences and workshops were successfully carried out,” Kurokawa said. “Also numerous high-quality papers were published based on this collaboration.” Later, Korea and India also participated in the project, expanding the collaborative programme to be Asian-wide.

Kurokawa also helped IHEP to upgrade the Beijing Electron Positron Collider (BEPC) to BEPC ll, transferring the superconducting accelerating technology used at the KEKB accelerator to China. He also served as a member of the Machine Advisory Committee for the BEPC ll. “This is a well-deserved award for Professor Kurokawa, who is very much appreciated at IHEP for his devotion to pushing the collaboration between IHEP and KEK,” said Jiuqing Wang, IHEP deputy director.

He served as chair of the Asian Committee for Future Accelerator (ACFA) from 2004 to 2006, and chair of the Steering Committee for the International Linear Collider (ILCSC) from 2005 to 2007.

“I faced difficulties to deal with the difference between two countries, as I recall. However, it was a great pleasure to promote and deepen the collaborative relationship with our Chinese colleagues. I am quite confident that this collaboration will grow further based on the strong foothold we have built,” Kurokawa said.

Founded in Beijing in November 1949, CAS is China’s top academic and research institution in natural sciences. The other two winners are Prof. Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University in the US, and Prof. Flemming Besenbacher of the Danish-Chinese Centre for Self-Assembly and Function of Molecular Nanostructures on Surfaces in Denmark.