The opening ceremony for the ‘2019 Advanced Workshop for Cultural Heritage Conservation’ was hosted in Beijing by the China Association for Preservation Technology of Cultural Relics, Institute of Cultural Heritage and History of Science & Technology of the University of Science and Technology Beijing, and the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage. The workshop is the first professional training course organised by the China Association for Preservation Technology of Cultural Relics on cultural heritage preventive conservation. Seventy-two professionals engaged in fields and companies related to cultural heritage conservation and management from provinces and cities around the country participated in the workshop on the protection and management of cultural heritage and conservation of cultural relics.

Professor Guo Hong from the University of Science and Technology Beijing Institute of Cultural Heritage and History of Science & Technology, who also serves as the vice-chairman of the China Association for Preservation Technology of Cultural Relics, presided over the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. In his speech, he stated that while China's science and technology in cultural relic conservation have progressed remarkably in recent years, the country still lags in terms of preventive conservation compared to developed counties around the world. Professor Guo explained that the workshop aims to promote the dissemination and popularisation of preventive conservation concepts and techniques, increase the training of professional and technical personnel for cultural heritage preventive conservation, provide technical support and personnel reserves for future cultural heritage conservation, and actively promote the comprehensive development of preventive conservation of cultural heritage in China.

The workshop will run for five days, including classroom lectures and field studies. We invited researchers from the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage, the Palace Museum, Dunhuang Academy China, the Capital Museum, and Tianjin CNRO Science-Technology Co., Ltd. to serve as lecturers. The content of the lectures includes details and methods of cultural relic conservation research, the concept and methods of preventive conservation of cultural relics, the general theory of preventive conservation of immovable cultural relics and analysis of case studies, preventive conservation of movable cultural relics and analysis of case studies, and the micro-environmental control technology used in museum artefact exhibition cabinets. In addition to classroom lectures, the participants will also visit the Palace Museum and the Capital Museum to study the preventive conservation measures employed on cultural relics.