2014 was a watershed year for the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (KIZ, CAS), with the institute seeing the first successful international review of a CAS institute within western China, hosting of the the fifth international Barcoding of Life (iBol) conference, and completion of the first phase of KIZ’s new campus.

While most of the major events of the year focuses on KIZ’s scientific staff, Director Yao Yong-Gang led a review of the administrative personnel at the institute to assess the management, success and challenges faced by supporting departments. Alongside representatives from human resources, party trade unions and department leaders, leadership of the institute spent two days hearing presentations from nearly half of the institute’s staff.

After reviewing the efforts of the administrative staff, Director Yao gave a brief report and spoke on major activities of the institute over the past year and laid out some suggestions for moving forward in 2015, focusing on building a more consensus and cooperative atmosphere within KIZ that stressed ongoing education and improvement.

(By Andrew Willden)