World Laureates Forum kicks off in Shanghai, transforming the world with science

The sixth World Laureates Forum (WLF) kicked off on Monday in east China's Shanghai, aiming to transform the world with science.

The three-day event, under the theme "Science Leads Transformation," is held in Shanghai's Lingang Special Area.

This year's forum, the largest and highest-level since it convened, welcomed over 300 scientists from 25 countries and regions, including 27 Nobel Prize winners and over 40 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

More than 120 young scientists from all over the world also attended the forum, making it a highlight of this year's forum.

The forum established for the first time an academic exchange workshop and a branch for young scientists. Additionally, a branch established for youth built intergenerational bridges among scientists.

WLA Prize presentation

At the opening ceremony, the 2023 World Laureates Association Prize was awarded for five scientists for their extraordinary contributions to fundamental sciences.

The prize in computer science or mathematics recognized Arkadi Nemirovski and Yurii Nesterov for their "seminal work in convex optimization theory, including the theory of self-concordant functions and interior-point methods, a complexity theory of optimization, accelerated gradient methods and methodological advances in robust optimization."

In the field of life science or medicine, three scientists – Daniela Rhodes, Karolin Luger and Timothy J. Richmond – were awarded for "elucidating the structure of the nucleosome at the atomic level, providing the basis for understanding chromatin, gene regulation, and epigenetics."

The WLA Prize is an international science prize established in Shanghai in 2021.