Recently, the Fundamental Research (FR) Forum on Frontiers of Information Sciences and the Second Meeting of the Information Sciences Editorial Board were held in Huzhou. The events were hosted by the Center for Science Communication and Achievement Transformation of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and organized by Huzhou Normal University. They were jointly convened by Long Gui-Lu, Executive Editor-in-Chief of FR and professor at Tsinghua University, and Hu Shimin, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of FR for Information Sciences and professor at Tsinghua University. Lu Jianhua, a member of the Leading Party Members’ Group and Vice President of the NSFC, and Sheng Kuang, President of Huzhou Normal University, attended the opening ceremony and delivered remarks. The ceremony was chaired by Tang Longhua, Deputy Director of the Center for Science Communication and Achievement Transformation.

　　Sheng Kuang extended a warm welcome to the academicians and experts attending the event. He expressed the hope that the exchange of ideas at the forum would help advance efforts to tackle critical and core technologies, contribute to the high-quality development of artificial intelligence in China, and inject strong impetus into the development of information sciences at the University.

　　In his remarks, Lu Jianhua noted that FR had been selected for the second phase of the China Science and Technology Journal Excellence Action Plan and had been indexed by a range of journal databases in China and abroad. The journal has remained in Q1 among multidisciplinary journals worldwide, with its academic influence continuing to grow. He called on members of the Editorial Board to work toward the goal of building a world-class scientific journal by upholding academic standards and maintaining rigorous quality control, actively soliciting and promoting high-quality submissions to attract outstanding original research, and strengthening collaboration to enhance the journal’s international influence and jointly advance the high-quality development of FR..

　　Representatives from the NSFC Department of Information Sciences provided a systematic review of the overall application, review, and funding of projects in 2026. They also explained reform measures, including the selection mechanism for major non-consensus projects and continued efforts to improve the review environment, and introduced key priority areas for funding by the Department of Information Sciences. The presentations provided valuable guidance for researchers, particularly young scholars, in identifying research topics and focusing their efforts on key scientific challenges.

　　Hu Shimin reviewed the achievements made in the development of FR since its launch. As a multidisciplinary journal supervised and sponsored by the NSFC, FR has, since its inception, taken leading international journals such as PNAS and Nature Communications as benchmarks, while continuously strengthening and optimizing its editorial board in China and abroad. Its academic influence has steadily increased. Hu also analyzed the current challenges facing the journal and outlined its overall development priorities for the next stage, with a focus on improving quality, internationalization, balanced development, and brand building. Members of the Editorial Board held extensive discussions on key issues, including journal section planning, strategies for soliciting and commissioning manuscripts, optimization of the review mechanism, enhancement of the journal’s academic influence, and support for the development of basic research in information sciences in China. The discussions helped build consensus on the journal’s future development and clarify the way forward.

　　Academicians Sun Hongbo, Guo Lei, Wu Feng, Hu Shimin, and others attended the academic forum on the frontiers of information sciences. Eight scholars from Tsinghua University, the University of Science and Technology of China, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and other institutions delivered invited presentations on topics including laser-based ultra-precision special manufacturing, neural digital-twin vision, quantum information science, distributed systems, 6G communications, multimodal large language models, and machine learning, sharing the latest developments in these fields.

　　Tang Longhua summarized the event, noting that the academic forum would not only help the journal build a strong pool of high-quality special-topic content and manuscript submissions, but also provide a platform for interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration in information sciences.

　　More than 50 experts and scholars from over 20 universities and research institutions across China, staff from the Editorial and Publishing Division of the Center for Science Communication and Achievement Transformation, and representatives of the faculty and students of Huzhou Normal University attended the event.