Zhang Qian

zhqcindy@163.com

THE president of Shenzhen University, Li Qingquan, was awarded a prize from Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation for recent progress he has made in science and technology at the annual awards ceremony Wednesday.

The foundation is by far the largest private foundation to award people for their great scientific contributions in China. A total of 52 Chinese scientists received awards from the foundation this year.

There are three categories of awards sponsored by the foundation, namely the Prize for Scientific and Technology Achievements, Prize for Scientific and Technology Progress and Prize for Scientific and Technology Innovation. The university president won this year’s prize for progress.

The top Prize for Scientific and Technology Achievements was awarded to Peng Shilu and Huang Xuhua, both of whom are academicians who have devoted their lives to the research and design of nuclear submarines in China.

Along with Li, another 33 scientists won progress prizes and 16 were awarded the Prize for Scientific and Technology Innovation.

President Li is among the 25 scientists who work at universities. He is one of the chief scientists in the country’s top scientific projects and owns 26 patents for inventions. He was appointed the president of Shenzhen University in July 2012.

The foundation was established by four entrepreneurs in Hong Kong in 1994 with a donation of HK$400 million (US$51.27 million).

Over the past 20 years, the foundation has awarded nearly 1,200 scientists, including more than 800 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.