Expanding community

For the organizers and participants of the symposium, the biggest progress — and joy — was seeing an increasing number of young scholars from various professional backgrounds join this undertaking, yielding impressive academic fruits.

"Both editions of the symposium invited foreign scholars to come and see what their Chinese counterparts are doing, share knowledge and exchange ideas," microbiologist Gu says, adding that the latest event has witnessed a great expansion of this particular academic community.

Wu says, over the past decade, more and more research institutions realized that the combination of zoology, botany and microbiology with archaeology and cultural relics conservation is appealing and has the potential to produce notable academic achievements, resulting in growing emphasis on cultivating graduates and doctoral students in this interdisciplinary field.

Gu says, "These hardworking young people have already made impressive achievements, but they have an even brighter future ahead of them. I hope this symposium can serve as a reference for them to recognize their position in this academic field and better plan for their future directions."

With talent and technologies, China has a great opportunity to advance cultural heritage conservation — going into detail, doing the work earnestly and thoroughly and developing its own model systems of research work, he adds.

Microbiologist Clara Enza Urzi, associate professor at the University of Messina, Italy, and president-designate of IBBS, stressed the importance of a common language shared among the multiple disciplines involved in cultural relics conservation — achieved from exchanges and applied in turn to promote exchanges — to deal with the attractive complexity of this academic field.

She says it's important for China to have this community, with enthusiastic young people, open to the rest of the world. She calls for more exchanges and cooperation, either personal connections or academic ties such as visiting scholar programs.

The Italian scholar also suggests that the younger generation, both of China and the rest of the world, should be more aware of the works of their predecessors and foreign counterparts.

Guo Qinglin, deputy director of the Dunhuang Academy, says that conducting interdisciplinary research is the key path and inevitable trend to achieve breakthrough development in cultural heritage conservation.

He adds that in the future the academy will proactively build a more open platform to deepen cooperation and exchanges with peer researchers and, through multidisciplinary collaborative innovation, contribute to the study, preservation and sustainable utilization of the cultural heritage of Dunhuang and all over the world alike.

"After all, in heritage conservation, collaboration surpasses competition. It brings people together," he says.

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