An Australian astronomer and Nobel laureate has called on fellow researchers to share their results and foster collaboration, in line with the spirit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) to break down barriers.

World leaders are expected to gather in Shenzhen later this month for the Apec Economic Leaders' Meeting. China, as host member nation, has outlined three core priorities: openness, innovation, and cooperation.

Those are also values that Brian Schmidt has been advocating for years.

An astrophysicist by profession, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Schmidt then became vice-chancellor of the Australian National University in 2016. During his eight-year tenure, he discovered the importance of having a suitable environment for students to turn their concepts into tangible results.

He said Shenzhen is the place to be for researchers.

"I'm from Canberra in Australia. There is almost certainly not going to be the pieces in Canberra for me to say, 'I've got this idea, let me take and make a prototype'," he told Shenzhen Media Group in an interview.

"And Shenzhen, every one of those pieces is there – the drone manufacturer, I need a camera manufacturer, I need an AI integrator, and I can just kind of go through and put it together.

"Which means that developing an idea into a prototype, you can do just phenomenally fast in Shenzhen compared to literally any place in the world."

While Shenzhen offers the ingredients to accelerate scientific development, Schmidt says the people involved in it must be willing to share their knowledge for the research community to thrive.

"It's really easy to start saying all this basic research is really valuable; therefore we don't share it. But that means that we all have to reinvent it, we don't get to work together, we don't get to know each other, and the whole thing just kind of... no one ends up with anything," he explained.

He encouraged researchers to collaborate, especially at a time when countries and blocs are drawing up trade barriers.

"Because there's many, many barriers going up right now. So Apec is trying to lower those barriers. So it's really important that we keep focusing on that, because if we focus [on] how, you know, you might take my idea, and I might take your idea, then we don't work together."

At a recent forum in Beijing, Schmidt also urged scientists to cooperate wherever they could to solve global sustainability issues.



Edited by Aaron Tam