The 18th Conference on International Exchange of Professionals (CIEP), co-hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology (State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs) and Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government, was originally scheduled to be held in Shenzhen from April 14 to 15, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, however, the Ministry of Science and Technology had to decide to adjust its time and form. To be specific, from July to November 2020, the offline exhibitions and negotiations were replaced by the online conference activities such as exhibitions, project promotions, matchmaking and negotiations, with a focus on creating a new platform for cooperation in sci-tech innovation and international talent exchange, and providing participants with a new channel for pragmatic and win-win cooperation.
The Opening Ceremony of the 18th CIEP was streamed live in Beijing, Shenzhen and Moscow in the afternoon of September 7 (Beijing time), in accordance with the purpose of “integrating global intelligence, promoting innovation cooperation, and seeking common development”, and based on internationalized, specialized, diversified, market-oriented and IT-based services. Wang Zhigang, Minister of Ministry of Science and Technology, Falkov Valery Nikolaevich, the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, and Wang Weizhong, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and Secretary of CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee attended the Opening Ceremony and delivered speeches online. By making most of the new opportunities of digital exhibition and online economy, the 18th CIEP was held online for the first time. Its online platform has five main functional areas, namely “Virtual Exhibition Hall”, “Project Matchmaking”, “Guest of Honor Zone”, “Online Recruitment” and “Online Services”. The conference also featured the main forum of the Shenzhen Forum and a number of theme-based activities in various forms and rich contents, providing a full range of services for cooperation in international sci-tech innovation and international talent exchange, and yielding positive outcomes.
According to statistics, in addition to the Guest of Honor Russia, the 18th CIEP attracted 81 overseas institutions from 20 countries and regions, including the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, Finland, France, Canada, Italy, Ukraine, Hong Kong China and Taiwan China, 5,291 professional organizations, training institutions, colleges & universities, high-tech enterprises and human resources institutions which were registered online, and 59,598 foreign experts, overseas high-level talents, and representatives from science & technology, human resources, education departments of provinces and cities and from talent attraction departments of enterprises. With a focus on maintaining a high international standard, the 18th CIEP encompassed numerous fields such as biomedicine, ecological environment, information transmission & communication, finance, agriculture, urban planning and architecture.
The 18th CIEP, by leveraging the advanced information technology, experienced the new structure design and process reengineering in terms of its online exhibition and exchange mode, with the aim of providing better exhibitions. In order to insist on selecting the best among the best, 30 representative high-tech enterprises from provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities were invited to display their latest sci-tech innovation achievements online. The 145 virtual exhibition halls were divided into 18 theme-based areas, including the Special Area for International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Achievements, the Special Area for Guest of Honor, the “Belt and Road” Construction Section, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development Section, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Construction Section, Shenzhen Pilot Demonstration Area Construction Section, the Special Area for Scientific and Technological Innovation Achievements of Central SOEs, the Special Area for Transfer and Innovation Cooperation of International Technologies, and the Special Area for School-Enterprise Cooperation, with an exhibition area of more than 20,000 square meters. The official website and related platforms received more than 9 million visits during the online conference.
The 18th CIEP, based on the full-cycle, multi-format brand communication and promotion strategy, made most of a variety of traditional media and new media resources to promote itself, including WeChat Official Account, Sina Weibo, Douyin, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and other mainstream social media platforms at home and abroad. At the 18th CIEP, 33 domestic mainstream news media, including Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily, China Daily, Science and Technology Daily, Economic Daily, China Media Group, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily and Shenzhen Economic Daily, released 2,000-plus articles, and more than 150 overseas news media, including Associated Press, ANSA, TASS, The Asahi Shimbun, Jiji Press and Daily Mail, released over 550 pieces of important news. The live videos of the Opening Ceremony and the main forum of Shenzhen Forum had been viewed and replayed for about 3.6 million times, and the live video of Russia’s Guest of Honor Event had been viewed and replayed for about 810,000 times. The online matrix of overseas celebrities was launched, and the cumulative user impressions of platforms exceeded 30 million, with more than 1,800 engagements, mainly involving Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Israel, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea and other countries and regions, and the reactions at both home and abroad were overwhelmingly positive.
