On July 11th, 2017, the Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASIA), Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria, France) and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI, the Netherlands), the three founding members of Sino-European Laboratory in Computer Science, Automation and Applied Mathematics (LIAMA Consortium) signed an agreement to deepen cooperation in key research areas based on LIAMA.

According to this new agreement, LIAMA Consortium promised to seek more cooperation opportunities in complementing each other's strengths in important research fields such as information technology and artificial intelligence, and LIAMA would become a mature and stable platform for science and technology exchange and communication between China and Europe with unrelenting efforts by all parties involved.

During the signing ceremony, Vice President of CAS ZHANG Jie, Ambassador of France to China H. Exc. Mr. Jean-Maurice RIPERT, and Ambassador of Kingdom of the Netherlands to China H. Exc. Mr. Paul MENKVELD delivered speeches, which was also to mark the 20th anniversary of LIAMA. Officials and representatives from more than ten other institutions also attended the ceremony. "LIAMA has brought together scientists from China and Europe to pursue and explore the truth as well as to share scientific achievements," Vice President of CAS ZHANG Jie said.

LIAMA has made great achievements with 20 years of development. Its Brainnetome Project has drawn the whole brain fine zoning map and the whole brain connectivity map, which attracts the attention of international counterparts. Besides, its research results on Human-Machine Interaction have become the main focus of National Key Research and Development Plan. In addition, collaborative study on neural computing chips has promoted China's research on brain-liked chips.

Founded in 1997 by CAS and Inria, LIAMA is the first joint research lab between China and France. It was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) to upgrade into an International Joint Research Center at national level and changed the title from Sino-French into to Sino-European after research institutes such as CWI joined in the consortium in 2008.

China, France and the Netherlands Signing a Renewed Agreement (Image by CASIA)