🐎🌏 Happy Year of the Horse - my personal message from China
This is the year of China at the Sustainable Building Design Lab at Liege University in Belgium. Having visited China more than seven times since 2023, I have had the privilege to experience the country not as an abstract headline, but as a living, working, thinking civilization. From Wuhan to Chengdu, from laboratories to lecture halls, from megacities to research institutes, what stands out is movement: intellectual, technological, and societal movement.
The Year of the Horse symbolizes energy, endurance, momentum, and forward vision. These qualities resonate deeply with the spirit I have observed across China’s universities, research centers, and engineering ecosystems.
China today is not simply participating in global STEM development. It is shaping it. In civil engineering, architectural and mechanical engineering, renewable energy systems, high-speed rail, materials science, artificial intelligence, urban infrastructure, and zero-carbon buildings, the scale and pace of research and deployment are transformative.
As Jan Oberg has wisely argued, sustainable global futures are built through engagement, not isolation. Collaboration with China is not a concession; it is a necessity for addressing planetary challenges. Climate change, energy transition, urban resilience, health technologies, and digital systems require cooperative scientific architectures, not geopolitical silos.
Oberg reminds us that the world becomes safer and more stable when knowledge flows across borders. In STEM, this means co-authorship, joint laboratories, data exchange, and mutual respect between institutions. It means academic courage and intellectual openness.Investing in collaboration with China is investing in global problem-solving capacity.
The Year of the Horse invites us to run forward, not apart, but together.I wish a prosperous, dynamic, and peaceful Year of the Horse to all my Chinese colleagues, friends, students, and partners, and to the wider global scientific community.
May this year bring endurance in research, courage in dialogue, and speed in solving the challenges that concern all of humanity.新年快乐 🧧🐎Happy New Year to China and to the world.
A special thank you to all my Chinese friends, students, and colleagues who invited and hosted me during the last few years. Views expressed in this post are personal.
📚 Learn more about our research: https://www.sbd.uliege.be/
💻 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://lnkd.in/diTVT5eq
🅱️ Bilibili b23.tv/bzjL3bn or 🎬 YouTube https://lnkd.in/erHrfkNf
🌐 Explore previous posts and resources: https://www.shadyattia.org b23.tv/bzjL3bn
🔗 Follow all my professional links, including WeChat🟩💬 微信: https://lnkd.in/eN3xZhhZ
#ChineseNewYear#YearOfTheHorse#马年大吉#新年快乐 #SpringFestival#ChinaCollaboration#GlobalSTEM#AcademicExchange#ScienceDiplomacy#EngineeringLeadership#ZeroCarbonFuture#InternationalResearch#LiègeUniversity#SustainableBuildingDesign#BelgiumChina