On February 1, 2013, CMB liaison officers coming from CMB’s 13 long-standing partner schools met in Bangkok, Thailand, for a grants management workshop. During the workshop, liaison officers joined CMB President and staff from Beijing/China and Cambridge/USA to share ideas for continuing to improve their joint work.

Few people recognize that much of the success of international cooperation with Chinese medical universities comes from the effective work of liaison officers in each institution that manages international relations. CMB has benefited from excellent relations with CMB liaison universities with 13 core medical universities for the past 32 years. Liaison officers communicate CMB programs to school leaders, faculty, and CMB grantees; collect, review, and coordinate grant applications on the school level; supply administrative and logistical support for CMB programs; and provide essential feedback to CMB for program improvements.

In recognition of their excellent work and to improve management to even higher levels, the CMB liaison officers hosted by Yuhong Jiang of Peking Union Medical College attended a management workshop in Bangkok, Thailand followed by a brief trip to Phuket. At the workshop CMB together recognized Central South University’s outstanding CMB liaison officers, Wu Zhigang and Xie Yun, with a 'CMB Liaison Officer of the Year' award. During the meeting, CMB’s programs and results of recent merit-based grantmaking cycles were reviewed. Sally Paquet and Cheng Chen of CMB Cambridge led a discussion to troubleshoot banking and administrative issues, with Linda Zhou and Echo Zong of CMB Beijing addressing issues related to grants management and tax determination.