Representative Co-Initiators and Supporters
A Circle in Formation
The International Eurasian Laboratory (IEL) remains in a formative stage. Yet it is precisely at such a stage that the character of an initiative begins to reveal itself: not only through plans and documents, but through the people and institutions willing to lend it seriousness, imagination, and trust.
This page presents a selected and representative group of distinguished scholars whose support has already helped give shape to IEL’s emerging community. They do not constitute the whole circle, nor a closed one. Rather, they reflect part of the intellectual and institutional foundation now gathering around the initiative: a foundation built not on formality alone, but on shared purpose, scholarly confidence, and a belief that new structures of international cooperation remain both possible and worth building.
What matters at such a beginning is not merely the accumulation of names, but the gathering of conviction. Early support helps clarify priorities, broaden dialogue, strengthen credibility, and create the human and institutional conditions from which future programs, collaborations, exchanges, and nodes may grow. Those who support IEL at this stage do more than endorse an idea. They help give shape to a living platform of cooperation.
Selected Representative Co-Initiators and Supporters
Professor Di Zhang
President of CORE Academy; Chair Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Member of the European Academy of Sciences; Academician of the Asia Pacific Academy of Materials
As President of CORE Academy, Professor Di Zhang stands at the point where IEL’s scholarly vision meets its long-term institutional formation. His support carries foundational significance. It reflects not only confidence in the Laboratory as an idea, but also a commitment to helping shape it as a serious platform for enduring scientific cooperation. A distinguished materials scientist whose work has advanced metal matrix composites, architectured materials, and bioinspired materials design, Professor Zhang brings to IEL a rare combination of scientific authority, strategic judgment, and institution-building experience. His presence helps anchor the initiative in a broader horizon of excellence, interdisciplinarity, and public purpose.
Professor Arif Hashimov
Director General, Institute of Physics of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan; Academician and Academician-Secretary of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences; Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Professor Arif Hashimov’s support is of particular importance because it links IEL’s wider vision to one of its earliest and most tangible institutional foundations. As Director General of the Institute of Physics of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and as a leading figure in the scientific life of Azerbaijan, his engagement gives the initiative real grounding in Baku, where IEL first began to take shape in institutional form. His support, therefore, carries more than symbolic value. It reflects the trust, seriousness, and cross-border openness required to help transform an initiative from aspiration into framework.
Professor C. C. Chan
Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong; Distinguished Chair Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering; Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering
Professor C. C. Chan’s support brings to IEL the authority of one of the great engineering pioneers of our time. His distinguished life in electrical engineering, electric vehicles, energy systems, and technological innovation speaks directly to one of the Laboratory’s central aspirations: to connect frontier knowledge with systems transformation, industrial application, and the wider public good. His support suggests something important about IEL itself. It signals that this initiative is concerned not with academic exchange in a narrow sense alone, but with the larger question of how scientific cooperation across regions may also contribute to technological progress, sustainable development, and the shaping of the future.
Professor Bobomurat Ahmedov
Director, Institute of Theoretical Physics, National University of Uzbekistan; Academician of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences; Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS); Fellow of CORE Academy
Professor Bobomurat Ahmedov’s support highlights a dimension of IEL that is especially vital: its capacity to become a serious home for high-level theoretical science while also opening new routes of cooperation across Central Asia. His support has been notable not only in spirit, but in substance. It points toward concrete forms of participation, including a Tashkent-linked affiliated node, a thematic working group on gravitational and geophysical foundations, and an early-career exchange program connecting young researchers across institutions and regions. Just as important is his insistence that science governance, ethics, and the humanities remain part of the conversation. His support reflects not only distinction in theoretical physics and astrophysics, but also a thoughtful understanding of what durable international cooperation requires.
Professor Kadir Gulamov
Chairman of the Council of Physicists of Uzbekistan; Academician of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences; Member of the Islamic World Academy of Sciences; Fellow of CORE Academy
Professor Kadir Gulamov’s support carries a different but equally important weight. Where some supporters speak chiefly from the standpoint of a scholar or institution, he speaks also from the position of a scientific organizer deeply attuned to the needs, capacities, and unrealized possibilities of a wider regional community. His support is especially valuable because it articulates how IEL might engage Central Asia through durable channels: links with academies and professional societies, programs shaped around regional strengths, stronger roles for senior scholars as mentors and advisors, and even the possibility of a regional consultation in Tashkent. It is support in a genuinely formative sense, strengthening IEL not only by prestige, but by experience and practical wisdom.
Professor Piero Formica
Professor and Thought Leader, Innovation Value Institute, Maynooth University, Ireland; Fellow of CORE Academy; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Professor Piero Formica brings to IEL an especially distinctive kind of support: one that enlarges the initiative’s intellectual horizon. Long recognized for his work on innovation, entrepreneurship, knowledge economics, and transdisciplinary thinking, he represents a strand of reflection deeply relevant to IEL’s future development. His presence reminds us that international scientific cooperation is not sustained by laboratories and institutions alone. It also depends on imagination, on the crossing of disciplinary boundaries, and on the capacity to rethink how knowledge creates value in society. His support points toward a Laboratory that is not only technically ambitious, but also alive to the deeper relationship between science, innovation, humanistic reflection, and the shaping of new futures.
Professor Alik Ismail-Zadeh
Research Professor, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; Fellow of CORE Academy; Inaugural Secretary and Fellow of the International Science Council; Member of Academia Europaea
Professor Alik Ismail-Zadeh’s support brings to IEL a particularly important dimension: the union of scientific expertise, science diplomacy, and a serious commitment to international cooperation in a turbulent geopolitical world. His work in advanced computing, intelligent systems, and high-performance numerical modeling in geosciences speaks directly to several of IEL’s emerging directions, while his emphasis on open science and on the freedoms and responsibilities of scientists enlarges the initiative’s broader institutional meaning. His support is therefore valuable not only because of his scholarly distinction, but because it reinforces a central idea at the heart of IEL itself: that durable cooperation across Eurasia must be built through intellectual openness, cross-border dialogue, and long-term trust.
Professor Vladimer Papava
Academician and Academician-Secretary of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences; Professor of Economics, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University; Fellow of CORE Academy; Founding Fellow of the Royal Economic Society
Professor Vladimer Papava’s support brings to IEL a clearer awareness of the wider institutional, regional, and developmental conditions on which durable cooperation depends. Long recognized for his work on economic transformation and the geoeconomic dynamics of Georgia, the Caucasus, and wider Eurasia, he reminds us that a serious scientific platform cannot rest on laboratories and scholarly exchange alone. It must also be grounded in institutions, public purpose, and a realistic understanding of how trust is sustained through change. His support therefore enlarges IEL’s horizon, strengthening it not only as a scientific initiative, but as a platform attentive to the deeper foundations of long-term cooperation across Eurasia.
Professor Artem Oganov
Distinguished Professor, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology; Member of Academia Europaea; Fellow of CORE Academy; Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry
Professor Artem R. Oganov’s support brings to the IEL a rare combination of scientific originality, intellectual range, and genuinely trans-Eurasian academic experience. Widely recognized for his pioneering work in crystal structure prediction and computational materials discovery, he has shown how deep theoretical insight can open new paths in high-pressure chemistry, advanced materials, and the study of matter under extreme conditions. His support is therefore significant not only as a mark of distinction, but also as a reminder that serious international cooperation in science is strengthened when advanced theory, real discovery, and durable cross-border exchange are held together within a common intellectual horizon.
Why Early Support Matters
IEL is not being conceived as a symbolic initiative alone. It is being shaped, step by step, through dialogue, trust, shared vision, and practical cooperation. At this stage, support from Fellows, scholars, and institutions matters in a substantive sense. It helps define directions, deepen confidence, widen the circle of dialogue, and strengthen the foundations from which future collaborations, programs, and institutional structures may grow.
The earliest phase of any serious undertaking is often the one in which its tone, character, and standards are most deeply formed. For IEL, early support helps ensure that its future development is guided by genuine scholarly purpose, institutional commitment, and a broad spirit of international cooperation.
An Invitation to Fellows and Partners
We warmly welcome further engagement from Fellows of CORE Academy, universities, academies, laboratories, research institutes, scientific centers, and other partners who may wish to contribute to the development of the International Eurasian Laboratory. At the present stage, such engagement may take many meaningful forms: scholarly endorsement, institutional dialogue, the introduction of prospective collaborators, the proposal of priority themes, working groups, or affiliated nodes, and the gradual shaping of future exchanges, platforms, and cooperative initiatives.
This page should be read not as a closed roster, but as an open circle still taking shape. The individuals highlighted here are representative rather than exhaustive, and we hope that, over time, this page will reflect a growing community of scholars and institutions joined by a shared commitment to knowledge, cooperation, and the building of new bridges across Eurasia and beyond. We would be honored to welcome further scholars and partners whose support, ideas, and engagement may help carry IEL into its next phase of development.
Download the IEL Initiative Brief ：
CORE IEL Initiative and Development Brief.pdf
Contact
For expressions of support, institutional dialogue, or interest in participating in the development of the International Eurasian Laboratory, please contact the Secretariat of CORE Academy at secretariat@coreacad.org.