The opening ceremony of the Tianjin New Energy Battery Industry Talent Alliance was held at the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Centre on May 21^st. Yu Yunlin, member of the standing committee and head of the Organization Department of the CPC Tianjin Municipal Committee, Zhou Derui, Tianjin Deputy Mayor, Wang Zhonglin, foreign academician of CAS and director of the Beijing Institute of Nano-energy and Nano-systems, CAS, Cheng Huiming, academician of CAS and professor of the Institute of Metal Research, CAS, Sun Licheng, foreign academician of CAS and professor of Westlake University, Chen Jun, academician of CAS and vice president of Nankai University, and representatives of leading entrepreneurs in the field jointly launched the alliance. Chen Jun and secretary of Nankai District Yang Bing each delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. Yin Jihui, director general of the Tianjin Industrial and Information Technology Bureau presided over the ceremony.

Energy serves as the material foundation and driving force for the progress of human civilization. As the second largest economy worldwide, China’s demand for energy is growing rapidly and continuously. Despite this, with high energy consumption per unit of GDP, being rich in coal and lacking oil and gas, China is now facing great challenges, such as energy and resource constraints, environmental pollution, and climate change. General secretary Xi Jinping once delivered an important speech at the General Debate of the 75^th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, pledging that China will scale up its intended nationally determined contributions by adopting more vigorous policies and measures, striving to have carbon dioxide emissions peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. To achieve these goals, we must vigorously develop new energy and renewable energy sources.

Tianjin regards new energy as a strategic emerging industry, and has laid out a number of large and medium-sized enterprises in the fields of photovoltaic power, wind power, hydrogen energy, batteries, electric vehicles, etc. A complete industrial chain and a relatively perfect new energy industrial cluster have been formed in Tianjin, making it an important production base in China. Meanwhile, many universities and research institutes are concentrated in the field of new energy batteries in Tianjin, which contributes to the great R&D strength of the city. Therefore, the establishment of the Tianjin New Energy Industry Talent Alliance is a significant measure put in place to serve the national strategy of carbon neutrality and develop new drivers of the new energy industry.

Nankai University has a deep research accumulation in the field of new energy batteries and has built a number of large scientific research platforms, such as key laboratories, engineering centers, collaborative centers, international cooperation bases and joint laboratories, so as to promote the application of basic research and industrial development of high-energy batteries.

(Reported by Wei Xie, translated by Guangyu Zheng, edited by Daniel Stefan and JianjingYun)