NIR2021: Sense the real change

Abstract

As a grand event for NIR people, the NIR2021 conference was successfully held in October 2021 in China, the most beautiful season in Beijing. The slogan of ICNIRS2021 in Beijing was “Sense the Real Change”, meaning that we will sense the various spectral information of NIR, the development of spectral theory and chemometrics, and the enhanced performance of instruments and measurement accessories. However, due to the impact of the global epidemic COVID-19, in order to effectively protect the health of the participants, NIR2021 finally decided to take the form of an online conference (live broadcast through the “Instrument Information Network – Web Lecture Conference Platform”), which has also become a historical event so far; this was the first international conference on near-infrared spectroscopy held online. Hosting an online global conference is indeed a big challenge for us, because all of the members of the organizing committee have no relevant experience. I still vividly remember that all the organizing committee members discussed on the preparation plan for this online conference, as well as the important supporting and assistance from Prof. Tom Fearn, Prof. Søren Balling Engelsen, Prof. Satoru Tsuchikawa and other ICNIRS members. Through several online meeting with them, we finalized the conference program and preparation plan. Taking into account the time difference between different countries and regions, NIR2021 was finally only held every afternoon in Beijing time. Therefore, there was only 4 hours for the conference program on each conference day; unfortunately, the number of presentations became very limited. Finally, there were totally 73 oral presentations, including 2 award presentations and 5 key note lectures, as well as 111 post presentations. NIR2021 was attended by 316 delegates from 29 countries of 6 continents (Figure 1). A total of 114 student delegates attended the conference, which was the largest number of student delegates in the history of the NIR conference. We believe that these young student delegates are the driving force for the development of NIR spectroscopy in the future. The conference opened on 18 October, with the melody of “Jasmine Flower”, a Chinese traditional song with a very oriental rhythm. Although the epidemic made everyone separated by thousands of miles, the beautiful melodies made people feel like they were in the ancient Forbidden City, receiving the warm welcome from Chinese researchers. In the online meeting room, the number of participants online once exceeded 300. Prof. Yuan Hongfu from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, China and Prof. Tom Fearn from University College London, UK addressed the conference, respectively (Figure 2). Of particular note, the first day of the conference was preceded by the presentation of the Karl Norris Award to Prof. Yukihiro Ozaki from Kansai Gakuin University, Japan. After the award ceremony chaired by Prof. Tsuchikawa, Prof. Ozaki gave us an excellent lecture, titled “NIR Spectroscopy – What a Wonderful World!”, and introduced in detail the research work of the Ozaki group on near-infrared spectroscopy over the past few decades, including NIR image, twodimensional correlation spectroscopy, and NIR instrument (Figure 3). On 21 October, the fourth day of the conference program, the ceremony of Tomas Hirschfeld Award took place in Belgium, chaired by Pierre Dardenne (regional sales manager of FOSS Benelux), which was