The Chinese Government Friendship Award ceremony was held on September 30, 2024, at the Great Hall of the People. Professor Hans Thybo from our institute attended the event and was honored with the prestigious Chinese Government Friendship Award. After the ceremony, both Professor Hans Thybo and Professor Irina Artemieva were invited to attend a reception celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Professor Hans Thybo is a distinguished full-time professor at the SinoProbe Lab of our institute and an internationally renowned geophysicist. He is currently a member of both the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and the Academia Europaea. He is credited with the discovery of the intermediate discontinuity in the lithosphere. He was also the first geophysicist to discover deep tectonic structures older than 1.5 billion years. He has initiated more than 60 large-scale international collaborative Earth science projects and works as the editor-in-chief of several leading international geoscience journals. Throughout his career, Professor Thybo has been committed to fostering strong cooperation with Chinese scientists. He co-initiated the Global Earth Section Project with our institute. He also played a key role in establishing the "International Symposium on Deep Earth Exploration and Practice" as a platform for academic exchange. In addition, he participated in the preparation of the 2024 International Symposium on Deep Earth Exploration and Practice and the development of the Earth CT international large-scale scientific program. Moreover, he has co-authored over 20 papers with Chinese researchers in international journals on deep Earth structure and evolution. He has also mentored about 10 Chinese PhD students. His contributions have been invaluable in fostering international cooperation and advancing cutting-edge research in the field of deep Earth science in China.