Source: School of Sociology and Anthropology
Written by: School of Sociology and Anthropology
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The 7th European Federation for Primatology (EFP) meeting together with the 30th Société Francophone de Primatologie (SFDP) meeting, organized by the the University of Strasbourg took place from 21st August to 28th August 2017 at Strasbourg, France. The conference was hosted by Kim Bard, President of EFP, and Brice?o Lefaux, president of SFDP, gave an address. More than 200 experts from 32 countries including France, Germany, the United States, Japan and China attended the meeting. Zhang Peng, professor of sociology and anthropology of Sun Yat-sen university (SYSU), who is the secretary-general of the China Primatological Society and the head of the primate research group of SYSU, attended this meeting.
The European Federation for Primatology (EFP) was founded in 1993. The EFP members are from 12 member countries and belong to societies or groups affiliated to the Federation. More than 1100 scientists, graduate students and zoo managers are involved in fundamental research, applied biomedical research and zoo management. This meeting is worldwide and covers many aspects of the Primatogloy. A symposium session provides a broad synthesized review of a given topic out of 18 in total, such as phylogeny and evolution, social behavior, cognition, ecology, genetics, neurobiology, nutrition, reproduction, breeding and conservation, etc., and discussed the global development of primatology. So far, this meeting is the largest and top level international conference in Europe.

Professor Zhang Peng and his postdoctoral researcher Dr. Sebastian Sosa chaired the symposium on “Research Progress on Primates’ Social Network", and introduced the international development of the China Primatological Society and the primate research group of SYSU in recent years. The China Primatological Society was formally established in 2017, with the School of Sociology and Anthropology at SYSU as its secretariat, and Professor Zhang Peng as the secretary-general. The primate research group of SYSU has now become one of the largest primatology research groups in China, which includes postdoctoral researchers from France, Italy, Singapore, Japan and other countries, leading the construction of international scientific research team within anthropology research area. This symposium eventually included more than 70 international scholars. Delegates agreed to strengthen the cooperation between the European Federation for Primatology and the China Primatological Society, to explore sustainable primates conservation strategies and to provide rich new ideas and research for future Asian primates conservation and research. Meanwhile, European and Asian experts from more than 20 countries reached consensus on the establishment of the Asian Primatology Federation.