On March 8, 2021, Qingyuan Forest Ecosystem Observation and Research Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, i.e., (Liaoning) Qingyuan Forest Ecosystem National Field Science Observation and Research Station held a symposium to discuss its strategic development, operation and management. More than 30 people attended the symposium, including Zhu Jiaojun, director of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and head of Qingyuan Station, Fang Yunting, deputy director of IAE, researchers and engineers at Qingyuan Station, and a number of top-notch experts in the field of ecology who were invited to join the discussion. The expert team consisted of Academician Fu Bojie, Prof. Zhuang Xuliang, Prof. Liu Shirong, Prof. Guo Zhiwei, Prof. Feng Renguo, Prof. Fan Weiming, Prof. Wang Kelin, Prof. Yu Xiubo, Prof. He Honglin, Prof. He Xingyuan, and Prof. Han Xingguo. The symposium was held in the form of offline (in Shenyang) and online video conference. 

Fang Yunting, on behalf of IAE, thanked the expert team members for their long-term support and trust. Then he briefed the theme and purpose of this symposium. Afterwards, Zhu Jiaojun, head of Qingyuan Station, reported to the expert team the overview of Qingyuan Station, such as its work condition, operation management, development goals, key tasks, work arrangements and annual plans during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period. 

The experts attending the symposium conducted in-depth discussions concerning Qingyuan Station's development direction, research contents and key tasks. Academician Fu Bojie highly praised the work foundation, observational facilities, research, experiments, and demonstration projects of Qingyuan Station. He suggested that the future layout of the station should focus on major national needs and international frontier scientific topics such as black soil conservation, carbon neutrality, etc.; optimise scientific goals; innovate observation items and form a characteristic observation index system; use networked observation data for research; make full use of the Ker Towers, forest hydrological monitoring network, forest warming research plots, forest permanent research plots, and other scientific research platforms; strengthen research on global change, ecosystem processes, as well as micro- and macro-ecology; promote cooperation with domestic and foreign institutes; establish an alliance to connect networks of different research stations in Northeast China, and become a regional central station. 

This symposium shed light on the development direction of Qingyuan Station in the next five years — that is, focusing on but not limiting to the solving of ecological issues in Northeast China; becoming a world-class ecosystem research platform; providing scientific and technological support and solutions for the sustainable management of forest ecosystems to serve the construction of ecological civilisation and a beautiful China.