May 26-28 , 2014 . Director of CESS P. Gong , deputy professor Nicholas Clinton , Dr. Yu , Dr. Li were invited to Tsinghua-JRC Joint Africa Symposium on Remote Sensing Cartography by European Union's Joint Research Centre ( JRC ) .

Both sides agreed on technical cooperation , data sharing , verification of African cartographic product etc . Recent cooperated goal was established to accomplish a new edition of 30m land cover mapping of African continent based on multiple time series of images of Landsat 8 by the end of 2014 . The classification system of mapping should include the system about land surface processes simulation and climate system model proposed by China and surface cover classification system developed by FAO .

During this period , Professor Gong made a academic report on China and global environmental mapping in the Institute of Environment and Sustainability(IES) of JRC . Then accompanied by Dr. Alan Belward , director of Land Resources Management Department , he have a talk with Dr. Maria Betti , director of IES . Both sides believed promoting deeper cooperation is needed .