The Eighteenth Tripartite Presidents Meeting (TPM18) among the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) of Korea, the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES) of China and the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) of Japan, was hosted by NIER visually on November 4, 2021.

President LI Haisheng of CRAES introduced the new situation and challenges of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025). He pointed out that during the last five-year period, the ecology and environment quality in China has been improved obviously, with peoples’ happiness being increased remarkably. Noting that the era of “Carbon Peak and Neutrality” and “Deepen Battle Against Pollution” has brought China’s ecological environmental scientific technologies with new opportunities, new challenges and higher requirements, CRAES is devoting to strengthen the capacity of science and technology innovation as well as the management support thereof. With regard to TPM mechanism, Li commented that although China, Japan, and Korea are situated closely in the Northeast Asia, the three countries need to face different environmental issues and pressures due to different development situations. Therefore, the three institutes should conduct more practical scientific research communication, with more information shared with each other.

After listening to the reports on “Scientific Research Progress since TPM17”, “In-Depth Analysis on the Comparative Study among Three Institutes” and “Research Focus on Climate Change Adaptation”, the three Presidents shared their views on future cooperation and expressed their readiness to enhance the application of artificial intelligence and big data in the ecological environmental field. They agreed to jointly optimize future collaboration under the TPM mechanism and signed the Joint Communiqué of TPM18.

Nearly 50 experts and representatives from NIER, CRAES and NIES attended the meeting.