On March 17th, the China Industry-University-Research Institute Collaboration Association held the 2023 China Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration Innovation and Promotion Award Ceremony at the Beijing Conference Center. With Soochow University as the first completion unit, the project "Ultra-long Span Optical Fiber Transmission Technology and Industrial Application," jointly undertaken with Jiangsu Hengtong Huahai Technology Co., Ltd. and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, was awarded the First Prize of the 2023 China Industry-University-Research Cooperation Innovation Achievement Award. Professor Shen Gangxiang from the School of Electronic and Information Engineering at our university served as the principal investigator. This award is a full recognition of our university's achievements in industry-university-research collaboration, as well as in the transformation of research outcomes.

Professor Shen Gangxiang has long been engaged in research on optical communication networks. He is elected as a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), a Fellow of the China Institute of Communications, and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society. He serves as the Executive Committee member of the IEEE Communications Society Strategic Planning Committee, Chief Scientist of the National Innovation Alliance for Marine Information Technology in the field of Marine Communication, Director of the Jiangsu New Optical Fiber Technology and Communication Network Engineering Research Center, leader of an outstanding technology innovation team in Jiangsu universities, and the head of a '333' innovation team in Jiangsu Province. He has been selected for the Elsevier 'Highly Cited Chinese Scholars List' for ten consecutive years and has received numerous awards, including the First Prize of Jiangsu Science and Technology Award and four other awards, the Excellent Award of China Patent Award, the First Jiangsu Patent Inventor Award (10 individuals), the Huawei Optics Product Line Excellent Cooperation Achievement Award, and the Spark Award (highest prize level). Two of his supervised postgraduates have won the Excellent Master's Thesis Award from the Chinese Institute of Electronics.

The China Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration Innovation and Promotion Award, established by the China Industry-University-Research Institute Collaboration Association with approval from the Ministry of Science and Technology of PRC and the National Office for Science & Technology Awards, is a national award for industry-academia-research collaboration and the highest honor in China's collaborative innovation field. The China Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration Innovation Achievement Award, as one of the awards of the China Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration Innovation and Promotion Award, aims to commend outstanding enterprises, universities, and research institutes that promote the integration of industry, academia, and research, relying on collaboration, projects, and market orientation to conduct scientific research, technological innovation, and the development and promotion of new technologies, products, and processes.