Press release – 13 November 2020

The online ceremony celebrating the official launch of the Huawei Young Talents Program at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques was recently held. This program aims to support the work of talented researchers in mathematics and theoretical physics, at the beginning of their career. Every year, the Huawei Young Talents Program will fund on average 7 postdoctoral fellowships that will be awarded by the Institute’s Scientific Council, only on the basis of scientific excellence. The fellows will collaborate with the Institute’s permanent professors and work on topics of their interest.

Five brilliant young researchers have already joined the Huawei Young Talents program. Three of them presented their work during the ceremony. Yue WANG gave a talk about “Inference on tissue transplantation experiments”; Zhe SUN’s presentation was about “Webs and tropical coordinates on surfaces” and Vasilisa NIKIFOROVA concluded the ceremony by a talk on “Generalized Einstein-Cartan theory of gravity”.

The Huawei Young Talents Program also gives IHES the possibility to create a prestigious 5-year position reserved to a particularly gifted young researcher. “Through this competitive post, the first of its kind at IHES, the Institute intends to reward exceptional talent and attract in France outstanding young researchers who might otherwise begin their careers elsewhere.” – comments Emmanuel ULLMO, Director of IHES.

Huawei renews its support to IHES for the next ten years
The creation of the Huawei Young Talents Program at IHES has been made possible thanks to the financial support from Huawei Technologies France. The company thus renews its trust to the Institute with a 6-million-euro pledge over the next ten years. For its larger part (5 million euros), this gift will finance the new Huawei Young Talents Program at IHES. It will also further finance the Huawei Chair in Algebraic Geometry (1 million euros). This Chair was created in 2019 to acknowledge the first 1M€ gift from Huawei to IHES. The first chairholder is Prof. Laurent LAFFORGUE, 2002 Fields medalist and a permanent professor at IHES since 2000. Prof. Laurent LAFFORGUE has been working closely with Huawei for several years, and presented a talk on “The creative power of categories: History and some new perpectives” at the ceremony.

During the ceremony, Marwan LAHOUD, Chairman of the Institute, expressed his gratitude to Huawei: “At a time when the global pandemic has brought much uncertainty and made it more challenging to plan ahead, Huawei’s generous support to IHES is ever more precious as it allows the Institute to take the long view and make plans to sustain a thriving scientific activity.”

“Because research is at the heart of our DNA, we believe that there can be no great breakthrough innovations without fundamental research. This is a strong conviction that we share with the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, and that is why we are delighted to sign with them the opening of the Huawei Young Talents program. IHES has created a fertile scientific environment. We are proud that Huawei is part of it.” – commented Zishang XIANG, Vice-President executive of Huawei European Research Institute.

“Since our installation 17 years ago, Huawei has chosen France as a land of excellence in research and development. In fact, we support the French scientific community and have built a relationship of trust with them based on a continuous exchange of knowledge.” – said Weiliang SHI, Managing Director of Huawei France. “This was the meaning of our approach when we inaugurated the Lagrange Research Center on October 9 in Paris. Today, it is the raison d’être of the Huawei Young Talents program, which we are fortunate enough to set up with our long-time partner, IHES.” – concluded Weiliang SHI.

 

Watch the introduction speeches and the scientific talks of the Huawei Young Talents Program launch ceremony

Here is Laurent Lafforgue’s talk on “The creative power of categories”:

Huawei Technologies France has recently pledged 6M€ to support the Institute over ten years. Part of this generous gift will extend the Huawei Chair in Algebraic Geometry, which was created in 2019 to acknowledge a 1M€ gift from Huawei and whose first chairholder is Prof. Laurent Lafforgue, 2002 Fields medalist and a permanent professor at IHES since 2000.

The remaining 5M€ will finance the Huawei Young Talents program, which aims to support the work of talented researchers in mathematics and theoretical physics, at the beginning of their careers. Every year, the Huawei Young Talents Program will fund on average 7 postdoctoral fellowships that will be awarded by the Institute’s Scientific Council, only on the basis of scientific excellence. The fellows will collaborate with the Institute’s permanent professors and work on topics of their interest.

“IHES’ unique and inspiring scientific environment constitutes the most fertile ground to foster young talents. Postdoctoral researchers, still at the beginning of their career, have all the potential to make the most of their stay at the Institute.” – said Emmanuel Ullmo, IHES Director, who, since the beginning of his mandate, in 2013, has made a real effort to expand the Institute’s postdoctoral offer.

The Huawei Young Talents Program also gives IHES the possibility to create a prestigious 5-year position reserved for a particularly gifted young researcher. “Through this competitive post, the first of its kind at IHES, the Institute intends to reward exceptional talent and attract in France outstanding young researchers that might otherwise begin their careers elsewhere.” – continued Emmanuel Ullmo.

“Early-stage researchers constitute an invaluable resource to IHES. Their dynamism and diverse research experience inject new life into the Institute’s scientific activity. Through the Young Talents Program at IHES, Huawei endorses once again IHES’ research model, thus standing on the side of free and disinterested research and taking part in the development of fundamental research in France”.