Kevin Jones是英国兰卡斯特大学杰出教授、挪威皇家科学院院士、全球知名环境科学家。他于2009年获中国科学院外国专家特聘研究员资助计划（中国科学院国际人才计划（PIFI）国际访问学者项目的前身）访问中国科学院广州地球化学研究所（简称“广州地化所”），与该所张干研究员开展合作。他助力广州地化所主导的亚洲大气持久性有机污染物观测网络和“21世纪海上丝绸之路”沿线环境污染与健康科研平台的建设，取得了丰硕的合作成果。2021年，在广州地化所等单位的推荐下，Kevin Jones教授获得2020年度广东省科技合作奖。以下是他对与广州地化所近20年合作的感想。

GIG-CAS Building International Collaboration

It has been such a pleasure to work with colleagues at GIG-CAS for many years now, so it is a great honor to be nominated for this prestigious award by friends and collaborators. Actually, I feel this award is shared by all our team, or “research family”.

My links to GIG-CAS started with my friend and colleague Professor Gan Zhang, who came to work with me in the UK nearly 20 years ago now. We have maintained our links ever since. As our careers have progressed, we have been able to maintain our collaborations and widened opportunities for our colleagues to grow a network together.

During that time, we have seen huge growth in our field of environmental pollution and organic environmental chemistry worldwide, and GIG-CAS has become one of the world’s leading centers for this research. Gan and his colleagues have established top-class laboratories and we have pioneered research to explore the sources, fate, behavior and effects of pollutants across national, regional and global scales.

We have been able to build links, collaborations, teams and partnerships with many other scientists and organizations in China and across the world. It has been fun, because many research group members from the UK and China have travelled between our labs, joined workshops, conferences and field work together.

I think the GIG team has actually helped to pioneer this open and friendly spirit to international collaboration as a ‘model’ for other Chinese groups and research organizations. This is so important at the present time, when there are major global environmental challenges for scientists to address together, and multicultural experiences and approaches are needed. So, a major part of the award acknowledges and supports this joint international endeavor toward training, education, capacity-building, research and impact for the environmental sciences.

Many scientists from Europe, North America and Asia have been part of this team, often hosted by GIG-CAS and supported for their lab work and field campaigns. We have seen young students grow up to become mature and leading scientists in their own right — establishing research expertise, labs and teams of their own — a very rewarding experience! We have had many models for these collaborations, including links with universities to set up joint training and labs, links with enterprises and businesses and with collaborators in the China Belt and Road partner countries.

One of the wonderful things about international collaboration is experiencing different cultures and learning about different countries, their people and perspectives of the world. I remember some great trips around China, always shared with my friendly and kind hosts. We have enjoyed fantastic Chinese cuisine together in many provinces! It has been a special highlight for me to bring some of my UK, European and North American colleagues to China for the first time, and to see their eyes opened to the wonders of China, and to share travels and experiences together.

Thank you to GIG-CAS, the wider CAS family, university partners at SCAU, SCNU, UIC and the UK FCO for all support and collaborations. I look forward to continuing our friendships and work in the future!

关于Kevin Jones教授的更多报道，见http://www.gig.cas.cn/gjjl/jldt/202106/t20210603_6078993.html（中）、http://english.gig.cas.cn/ns/icn/202109/t20210901_282297.html（英）。