On April 22nd, 2012, an instruction seminar for the "Grand Challenges Explorations" (GCE) was held for the first time in Yuquan Campus of GUCAS. GCE is a program supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation). A series of such GCE projects have been granted since 2008. According to the official website of Gates Foundation, GCE grants have already been awarded to 602 researchers from 44 countries.
This lectures takes "One inspiration, for $100000, Two pages, Gates helps you to change the world" as the slogan to attract more students to participate. Actually, The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page applications and no preliminary data required. Applications are submitted online, and winning grants are chosen approximately 4 months from the submission deadline.
The seminar was hosted by CRE, and started by the welcome of Dr. ZHANG YuanXun, the Executive Dean of CRE. The instruction was divided into three parts: the GCE and the Gates foundation, the GCE collection themes and application process, as well as the question and answer session. This year's GCE first looks for innovative communication concepts, including "tell the world: aid force", "to explore new ways of antimalarial compounds", "to protect the crops from the biological stress", "the crowd immunization system design optimization new method", and "explore solutions to global health key areas of the new scheme", a total of five subjects. At present, the official website of GCE has begun to accept the 5 themes of online application, and the deadline for Beijing is early morning of May 12th, 2012.
During the end section of the seminar, He Yang and some other students asked different questions actively. Then Dr. Zhang YuanXun summarized and expressed his ardent anticipation that students should devote to innovate scientific explorations.
In 2012, Gates Foundation will have totally ten GCE instruction seminars all over China in selected ten famous universities, and the seminar in GUCAS is the 9th one.
“We found the students of GUCAS are all have logical and realistic thinking, showing special rigorous scholarship that I have never seen”, said by ZHANG Jing, a senior program officer of Gates Foundation in the Beijing Representative Office.
(This seminar was announced on CRE's website previously, click here for more information)
