The Shanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Grottoes Protection and Inheritance is established at the forum in Datong in Oct 12. [Photo/Datong Daily]

A national academician forum on strategic research on cultural relic protection and scientific and technological innovation was held in the city of Datong in North China's Shanxi province on Oct 12.

The forum was hosted by the Academic Divisions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Department of Engineering and Material Sciences at the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Museum of China, and the Shanxi Culture Relics Bureau.

More than 80 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and experts and scholars who have been working in cultural relic protection for a long time attended the forum.

The forum further clarified problems facing the protection of cultural relics and their solutions through various activities such as cultural relic protection field surveys, academic reports, and long-term planning, so as to support the rapid and healthy development of cultural relic protection and serve China's cultural development.

The Shanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Grottoes Protection and Inheritance was established at the event.

The lab is an important platform for promoting the research and protection of cultural relics in the Yungang Grottoes.

It will focus on difficult problems facing the protection of the grottoes' cultural relics, and build a cultural relic innovation system for basic research on sandstone cave temple cultural relic protection, key technological research and development, scientific and technological achievement transformation, and information sharing.

The forum was an important measure by Datong to strengthen the research, protection, and utilization of cultural relics and fully promote Yungang studies.

The city has always attached heavy importance to the protection of cultural relics, and has continuously promoted the protection of cultural relics and cultural inheritance in local socioeconomic development.

Its cultural relic-related work has been at the forefront of Shanxi for many years, and has been commended by the provincial and national cultural relics departments many times.