Prestigious Chinese award for Richard Strom

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On December 20, at an informal ceremony at the Chinese Embassy in the Hague, Richard Strom, former astronomer at ASTRON, received the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award. This award is China's highest scientific honour for foreign individuals. In 2020, Richard had already received the Award for International Scientific Cooperation from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. During his ASTRON years (and after) Richard was a very active collaborator of China's FAST project, the largest radio telescope in the world. He also played an important role in arranging visits to the Netherlands and ASTRON of Chinese astronomers, such as Nan Rendong and Bo Peng. The prestigious awards are in recognition of this important work.

In normal times, this kind of award is handed out by the President of China in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, but because of covid it was done by Ambassador Tan Jian at the Chinese embassy in the Hague. A number of speeches were given, by the Ambassador and other dignitaries, but also by Chinese collaborators of Richard. Raffaella Morganti spoke on behalf of the several colleagues of ASTRON and JIVE that were present. The formal part was followed by drinks and delicious chinese food.

PS: for the younger among us: in 1974, Richard Strom joined ASTRON as one of its first astronomers and he has been part of our institute for more than 35 years. He worked on supernova remnants, GRB's, pulsars, polarisation, radio galaxies and many many other things. He was also involved in many of the instrumentation projects of ASTRON and, of course, in China. He is also well known for making comets at ASTRON's Open Days. He retired in 2009.