Prof Ron Chen received The State Natural Science Award (SNSA) second-class award conferred under the 2008 State Science and Technology Awards (SSTAs), to honor his long-term research project "Chaos Anti-control and Generalized Lorenz Systems Family - Theory and Applications". It is noted that there was no first-class award given this year.

Prof Chen's project belongs to the frontier of interdisciplinary scientific research on chaos theory, control systems and mathematical sciences. Its findings provide some new theories and technologies for applications of nonlinear science to engineering, physics and biology alike.

Organized by the State Council of the People's Republic of China, the State Science and Technology Awards are highly recognized awards in the science and technology fields in the Mainland. In 2008, more than 160 shortlisted entries were received and competed for the SNSA category, which is China's most prestigious award in the field of natural science. It aims to recognize academic excellence in basic and applied research in natural science. A total of four SNSA second-class awards were conferred to our HK scientific talents, in which two are led by HK scientists including the one led by Prof Chen.