Participants attend a plenary lecture at the 2017 China National Symposium on Combustion at Southeast University, China.

Approximately 1,300 delegates from 125 institutions in China, United States, Australia, South Korea, Sweden and New Zealand attended the 2017 China National Symposium on Combustion. The annual national symposium convened at Southeast University in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China from Friday, 13 October through Sunday, 15 October 2017.

Held for many years, the symposium has been the most important academic conference in combustion research in China. The symposium was organized by the Chinese Section of the Combustion Institute and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). The technical program consisted of contributed papers and Work-in-Progress Poster (WiPP) sessions. Five plenary lectures and 12 topical reviews were presented by eminent specialists on multiple topics of fundamental combustion research. In total, 259 oral presentations and 336 posters were presented during the symposium. For the first time, papers were accepted in English and there were two sections with presentations in English.

The plenary speeches were respectively presented by the following:

Hai Wang, Stanford University, United States
Assaad Masri, University of Sydney, Australia
Rui Xiao, Southeastern University, China
Tianyou Wang, Tianjin University, China
Zhuyin Ren, Tsinghua University, China

The progress of 168 projects supported by NSFC was also reported by oral presentations or posters. A Young Scholars Forum was organized with about 200 attendees. Several recent winners of the NSFC Excellent Young Researcher Funding and Outstanding Young Researcher Funding shared their research experience.

The committee meeting of the Chinese Section of the Combustion Institute was also conducted during the symposium. Recent works by several sub-committees were discussed. In his role as Secretary for Sectional Affairs, Fei Qi, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, shared recent information from The Combustion Institute and reported the progress made by the Chinese combustion community. Program Co-Chairs, Naian Liu, University of Science and Technology of China, and Zheng Chen, Peking University, presented the report of the program committee.

At the closing ceremony and banquet on Sunday, 15 October, Minghou Xu, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, announced that Yiqian Xu, Southeast University, China, received the Outstanding Contribution Award of the Chinese Section of The Combustion Institute, due to his contribution in coal-fired magnetic fluid power generation, as well as teaching in thermal engineering. In addition, 10 Best Paper Awards were issued for papers submitted respectively to the 2016 and 2017 symposia. Another 10 Best Poster Awards were also issued for posters exhibited during the 2017 symposium. After the award ceremony, Shaozeng Sun, Harbin Institute of Technology, China, reported the preliminary preparation and arrangement work for the 2018 China National Symposium on Combustion, which will be held in Harbin, China.