The 2023 Annual Meeting of the China National Committee for IGCP was successfully convened on December 18-19, 2023. The meeting was hosted by the China National Committee for IGCP and greatly supported by the IGCP Secretariat at the UNESCO headquarters. The hybrid meeting attracted a large number of geoscientists and students on the virtual meeting platform.

At the opening ceremony, Dr Özlem Adiyaman from the IGCP Secretariat at the UNESCO Headquarters, Mr. Qin Changwei, Secretary-General of the China National Commission for UNESCO, and Prof. Cheng Qiuming, Past President of the International Union of Geological Sciences delivered opening addresses. The Opening Ceremony was chaired by Prof. Hou Zengqian, Chair of the China National Committee for IGCP and Director of the Ministry of Natural Resources(MNR) Lab of Deep Earth Sciences and Technologies.

Academicians and experts both from home and abroad were invited to deliver keynote talks on Tethys Geodynamic System, New Development of Deep Earth Exploration in China, Lithospheric Structure in North China Craton and Tibet. Both Chinese and international IGCP leaders were invited to present their latest research results focusing on the IGCP scientific themes - Earth resources, global change, geohazards, hydrogeology and geodynamic during the past year. Altogether 14 IGCP projects were presented at the meeting. UNESCO Category II Centers - International Research Center on Karst Geology and International Center on Global-Scale Geochemistry reported their annual work during the meeting. The meeting has won widespread acclaim due to its high-level academic exchanges and a wide range of research fields.

The China National Committee for IGCP will further cooperate with the IGCP Secretariat at the UNESCO headquarters to jointly promote IGCP projects among the Chinese and international geoscience community and to attract more young geoscientists to join IGCP projects. Since its initiation in 1972, IGCP projects have made important contributions to facilitating international scientific cooperation in the geosciences and solving many major geological issues of global concern, such as early warning of geological disasters, climate change, mineral exploration, groundwater resources protection, etc. China has been a major participating country in the IGCP projects and the Chinese geoscientists have participated in 151 projects in total.