On September 22, the Conference on Innovation and Development in Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Chemistry Discipline of HENU was held in the auditorium of Minglun Campus. The Conference gathered leaders, guests, alumni, teacher and student representatives from all over the world to review the century-old progress and look forward to a grand blueprint for the new century.

The Conference was attended by Yuhua Diao, deputy director of the Education Department of Henan Province, Academician Buxing Han of the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician Xiyun Yan of the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician Aibing Yu, vice president of Monash University in Australia, as well as representatives from research institutes, universities, enterprises and government departments. It also invited leaders of HENU, including Suojiang Zhang, Zhen Tan, Shenglei Fu to attend.

At the Conference, Yuhua Diao talked about the outstanding contributions that the discipline of Chemistry in HENU has made to education in its century-old development. He pointed out that standing at a new historical starting point, the discipline of Chemistry, as one of the dominant disciplines of HENU, should strive for greater breakthroughs in the construction of high-level talent teams and the research on original innovation and bottleneck technologies so as to provide more personnel and intellectual support for the economic and social low-carbon intelligent transformation and sustainable development of Henan, and the construction as a national innovation hub.

Later, Academician Suojiang Zhang, president of HENU, expressed his sincere welcome and gratitude to all the guests for attending the Conference. He pointed out that in the future, all chemists would live up to the ardent expectations of the University. He promised that HENU would always face China's national and regional major strategic needs and promote major outputs; foster and introduce high-level comprehensive and innovative talents that lead the social development in the future; stimulate innovation vitality so as to promote the high-quality development of the discipline of Chemistry.

Yongming Chen, dean of the College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, summarized the development achievements of the chemistry discipline over the past century, especially the new breakthroughs made in recent years in terms of discipline construction and scientific research platform construction. He also analyzed the current constraints on the development of the discipline and proposed following steps for further construction.

Then, speeches were given by Zhijun Zhang, a teacher representative of HENU, Junbiao Chang, vice president of Zhengzhou University, Jianji Wang, former president of Henan Normal University, and Bernd Sachweh, a professor from the University of Kaiserslautern, in which they expressed a high praise for the construction achievements of the discipline of Chemistry in HENU and wished it to write a new chapter of development in the new era.

In addition, the unveiling ceremonies of the Henan Institute for Green and Low Carbon Research and the Department of Chemical Sciences of HENU were held at the Conference. During the signing process, the Chemistry Department of HENU signed cooperation agreements with Monash University, Longzihu New Energy Laboratory, Sinopec Carbon Industry Technology Co., Ltd., China Petrochemical Corporation Zhongyuan Oilfield, Henan Energy Group, Pinggao Group, and Henan Pingmei Shenma Group.

The Department of Chemical Sciences of Henan University has hired well-known experts and scholars in China and established a Strategic Advisory Committee for the development and construction of the chemistry discipline. Buxing Han, director of the Committee and Academician of the Institute of Chemistry of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Jingxu Zhu, the representative of the international members of the Committee and Academician of the University of Western Ontario, spoke respectively, expressing their best wishes for the prospects of HENU and its discipline of Chemistry.