On April 25, the ISBE founding member, Professor Ren Lei from University of Manchester visited the ISBE Secretariat. Professor Liu Yan, the vice-director of Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering of Jilin University, Professor Tian Limei, the General Secretary of the ISBE Youth Committee and other representatives from the key lab and the Secretariat participated in the seminar.

The office director Wang Runmao firstly expressed the welcome greetings to Professor Ren, and detailed the current situation and development status of the ISBE. Professor Ren affirmed the role of the Society played as an international platform and highly praised the progress made by the ISBE. The participants conducted in-depth discussions on the development of the Society’s official website, bionic database and knowledge base construction. Professor Ren on his own experience had put forward valuable suggestions and opinions on the future development of the Society and expressed that he would provide all-round assistance and support in the aspects of membership, website, knowledge base construction, etc. During the meeting, both sides reached the agreement that the 2020 International Workshop on Bionic Engineering (IWBE2020) will be organized by the University of Manchester in UK.

Professor Ren Lei works at the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering in University of Manchester, UK and is the director of the biomechanics. As a Changjiang Chaired Professor, he is an academic leader in the bionic walking research field of Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering of Jilin University. He is the associate editor-in-chief of the “Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology” and the editorial board member of “PLoS One” and “Journal of Bionic Engineering”. Professor Ren has made a series of original achievements in academic field in recent years. He has received attention and coverage from many high level international journals and media, including Nature, Science News, and Telegraph, and his research results have been cited by nearly 400 researchers in 39 countries.