Progresses and Activities of the International Space Science Institute in Beijing (ISSI-BJ)

Progresses and Activities of the International Space Science Institute in Beijing (ISSI-BJ)

The International Space Science Institute-Beijing (ISSI-BJ,http://www.issibj.ac.cn) was jointly esta-blished by the National Space Science Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NSSC, CAS) in Beijing, China, and the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern, Switzerland, with the support of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). As a close cooperation partner of ISSI, ISSI-BJ share the same Science Committee, the same stu-dy tools, the connections with international space science communities, and other information of mutual relevance and interest. However, the two in-stitutes have independent operational fund re-sources and operating models. The main tools ISSI-BJ uses include International Teams, Forums, Workshops, Working Groups, or individual Visiting Scientists, as well as outreach activities such as the Understanding Science seminars and the biennial Space Science School.

During the two-year period from 2018 to 2019, ISSI-BJ had selected and supported 13 inter-national teams for the advanced studies of space science data processing and research; it has organized 9 forums for the discussion of the science, technology, and international cooperation and the future of the development of ISSI-BJ itself. ISSI-BJ has also organized 2 workshops on “Tropical and Subtro-pical Cyclones with Improved Satellite Observations” and “Oscillatory Processes in Solar and Stellar Coronae”. In this time span, ISSI-BJ has attracted almost 400 international visitors to participate in different activities, and thus, it has managed to establish its reputation as an important platform for the exchange and colla-boration in space science research.

In 2018, jointly with the Asia-Pacific Space Coo-peration Organization (APSCO), the second Space Science School on “Study Space Weather Effects–From the Sun to the Ground” was held at Sanya Institute of Remote Sensing in Sanya, Hainan Pro-vince, China. Throughout the school, 10 lecturers and 14 tutors from Asia and beyond shared their knowledge and experience with 57 students from 10 countries.

In addition to the research projects, ISSI-BJ re-gularly organizes popularization talks to reduce the gap between science and the public as part of the “Understanding Science”, which is a series of outreach activities organized by the UK Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the Beijing University of Chemical Technology (BUCT), and ISSI-BJ. Its goal is to make a broader public aware of today’s accomplishments in science research through short scientific lectures in English (popularization talks) as well as to have an opportunity to talk with either international or Chinese scientists in a friendly environment. A collaboration with SELF was recently started. From 2018 to 2019, five Understanding Science seminars were organized. ISSI-BJ publishes the Taikong magazine series constituting the output of the Forums and the Space Sciences Series of ISSI books which are coherent reports of the findings, discussions, and ideas that result from Workshops regularly held at ISSI Bern and ISSI-BJ.

From 2018 to 2019, 9 issues of Taikong magazine were published, reporting on the content of the forums and reflects in a neutral way the Forum discussions and advices from all participants. And one topical volume was edited and issued first in Space Science Reviews, and then was published in 2019 as part of the SSSI: Astronomical Distance Determination in the Space Age–R de Grijs and M Falanga (Eds.), Volume 66, Springer 2019.