Congratulations to two outstanding research teams who were bestowed prestigious national honours under the State Science and Technology Awards 2018 in recognition of their significant contributions to the advancement of science and technology.

Prof. Xia Yong (left) of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and team members received the State Technological Invention Award (Second Class Prize) for his work in safety assessment and precise local damage detection technologies for long-span bridges. The developed technologies have been applied to over 30 bridges worldwide and extended to skyscrapers including the 632-metre Shanghai Tower, the tallest building in China.

In addition, Prof. Ding Xiao-li (right) of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics and his team got the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award (Second Class Prize). Their research helped advance significantly the interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), one of the most important satellite-based remote sensing technologies, especially useful for monitoring ground and infrastructural deformation including those related to earthquakes, landslides, construction and structural health conditions.