A delegation from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) visited Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) on August 17th. The NWO delegation includes Dr. Louis Vertegaal, Director of Astronomy, Chemistry, Computer Science and Mathematics, and Dr. Ronald Stark, Head of Astronomy, as well as Mr. Jingmin Kan, Assistant Counsellor for Science & Technology. The members of the delegation met and discussed with Dr. Xiaoyu HONG, the Director of SHAO, Dr. Jinliang HOU, the vice-Director of SHAO, Dr. Zhiqiang SHEN, the head of VLBI Division of SHAO, and Dr. Tao AN.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) funds thousands of top researchers at universities and institutes and steers the course of Dutch science by means of subsidies and research programmes. SHAO has been collaborating with observatories and institutes in the Netherlands funded by the NWO on a variety of projects in radio astronomy since 1980s.

Director of SHAO, Xiaoyu HONG first gave a welcome to the Dutch guests. Dr. Zhiqiang SHEN next introduced the collaboration between SHAO and the Joint Institute of VLBI in Europe (JIVE, located in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands), and the current status of the Chinese VLBI Network consisting of four radio telescopes and a data correlator center. Then Dr. Ronald Stark introduced the development of radio astronomy in Europe, and expressed their willingness to deepen and broaden bilateral collaborations between SHAO and Dutch institutes and observatories. The participants in the talk discussed the ways of further collaboration and communication in scientific research and projects.