The twelfth academic advisory committee kicked off at ITP Beijing on April 27, gathering over ten committee members, in addition to scientific and administrative staff of the institute. ITP director Prof. YAO Tandong welcomed all participants in ITP's new building and introduced the operation of the Third Pole Environment (TPE) program during the meeting.

Sino-Pakistan cooperation, Sino-Nepal joint field expeditions, and TPE’s involvement in the scientific aspect of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization were later presented consecutively by ITP Profs. XU Baiqing, KANG Shichang, and DING Lin. Apart from those mutli-national field expeditions, a holistic network of field observation and monitoring stations and training of the young generation of scientists are also important aspects within the TPE program, and were presented by Profs. ZHU Liping and ZHANG Fan, respectively.

Members of the advisory committee showed full support of the TPE program. Suggestions and comments were also proposed to further promote this international effort. They included the suggestion on learning from advanced academic thoughts, importing high technology in the international geosciences research, bearing in mind unique features of the Tibetan Plateau, and closely cooperating with research units within the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as those within China in the academic research.