On September 7, the 2020 annual meeting of the National Key Research and Development Project "Site Soil Environmental Damage Assessment Methods and Standards," was held in Shenyang. This meeting was conducted through a combination of on-site and online (video) meeting. More than 60 people, including project PIs, technical backbones of the project and specially invited review experts (e.g., Zhou Lianbi from Beijing Mining and Metallurgical Technology Group Co., Ltd., and Lin Yusuo from Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences of the Ministry of Environmental Protection), attended the meeting. The meeting was chaired by Wang Xugao, head of the Science and Technology Division of IAE.

Fang Yunting, deputy director of IAE, delivered a welcome speech, and expressed his gratitude to the project review experts and participants. Prof. Zhu Jinghai, PI of the project, then gave a talk on overall situation of the project. Prof. Liu Mingda from Shenyang Agricultural University, Prof. Chen Xijuan from IAE, Prof. Tang Yulan from Shenyang Architecture University, Prof. Xi Shuhua from China Medical University, Associate Prof. Bu Naishun from Liaoning University, and Wang Yanhong from IAE reported on the progress of six sub-projects that they were in charge. The project review experts gave comments and suggestions on each sub-project. They suggested that the research tasks should be firmly implemented in accordance with the mid-term goals and assessment indicators of the project, and that the main points and major results of the project should be further highlighted and well summarized. It was also suggested that a project office should be established as soon as possible, and research progress should be reported regularly to the Division of Science and Technology of IAE.

After the meeting, Prof. ZHU Jinghai, PI of the project, held an internal meeting. He suggested that researchers in charge of the sub-projects think in depth about the comments and suggestions raised during the annual meeting, put forward solutions, and properly deployed the next work tasks to make full preparations for the mid-term assessment of the project.