The work of Professor Roger Falconer, a renowned British engineer, has been recognized through his receiving the prestigious China Friendship Award. Falconer told CGTN of the recent increased academic collaboration between Western and Chinese scholars. Falconer has collaborated with Hohai University and the Yangtze Institute, focusing on a pioneering project involving the construction of coastal reservoirs to support major megacities like Shanghai.
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00:00Is there more of an openness now within with Western scholars to work with
00:06Chinese scholars would you say? If you're talking about the academic fraternity
00:10yes most of my colleagues that I know not just in the universities that I've
00:15worked in but across the UK and across Europe they admire the Chinese
00:19academics and vice versa I think the respect is mutual in both ways.
00:24Are there any particular areas that we might see coming out of that
00:29collaboration in the near term? Yes I mean the developing turbines for
00:34example and much more efficient turbines are going to be developed by are being
00:40developed based on collaborative activities we're now looking at
00:45improving the representation of things like foetal bacteria there are many
00:50people working on flooding around the world what I realized from a study in
00:53the UK that flooding could be made much worse if something like a car went into
00:58the river and then blocked a bridge I started working on that problem I then
01:03started introducing the problem to my Chinese friends this is a big project in
01:07China so they have developed with in partnership with my university Cardiff
01:12University formulations for how cars move in floods and so forth and I
01:17believe this has been hugely beneficial in China and now it's starting to come
01:21in here with some companies interested in applying this year so I think it's
01:25been a two-way partnership and now working with Hohai University and the
01:30Yangtze Institute at Hohai University and here we're looking at following
01:35something that China is doing already which is building coastal reservoirs to
01:40provide water for major megacities like Shanghai they have the Qingkou
01:44Shao Reservoir in the estuary of the mouth of the Yangtze and I can see this
01:49approach being adopted much more in the West in the future to supply water
01:53during particularly during periods of drought in terms of China as a country
01:58what sort of feelings do you have towards it what sort of emotions what
02:01do you think of I think that the Chinese people have always treated me as a
02:05friend and I think they want to be friendly with people all around the
02:11world and I think given that opportunity we've benefited enormously together why
02:17does it upset you the lovely people I don't think people have been there they
02:27may say or they visited but that's not the same as working with people to
02:32address some of the big challenges in the world no country is trying harder to
02:38to address the problems of climate change in my experience than China it
02:42may have a lot further to go than many other countries but they are they doing
02:50their best professor Falkner thank you so much for your time