Recently, Springer Nature officially announced that Niels Peter Thomas will replace Arnout Jacobs as the new President, Greater China of Springer Nature from 1st August 2021. Arnout will soon return to Europe to take the new role as Vice President of mathematical, physical and applied science journals. On 21st July, Arnout bid farewell to Ms Wang Fang, Secretary of the CPC Committee of FLTRP Group, Chair of the Board of FLTRP Group and President of FLTRP through video conference together with Ms Emma Bourne, Managing Director of Schools (K12) and Higher Education Division of Macmillan Education, and Christine Zhu, General Manager of Macmillan Education Asia.
During the meeting, Ms Wang extended her sincere congratulations to Arnout for his new position, and reviewed the milestone projects between FLTRP and Springer Nature during Arnout’s tenure of the past five years. In 2017, the two parties kicked off the “Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture Series”, and co-launched the full series of “Nature: the Living Record of Science” in 2019 Frankfurt Book Fair. In this May, FLTRP launched “IExplore English Course”, a digital textbook series licensed from Macmillan Education, which is a milestone project between the two parties in ELT textbook publishing field apart from New Standard English. Ms Wang expressed heartfelt gratitude to Arnout for his remarkable contribution in strengthening the partnership between Springer Nature and FLTRP and wished him every success in his new role.
Arnout said, “The past five years in China have been a very enjoyable experience for me. I am glad to see that with the support of President Wang Fang, the communication and exchanges between the two sides are efficient and smooth, and the areas of cooperation are constantly expanding and the number of cooperation projects is increasing. My new position will focus on scientific journals and I look forward to exploring new collaborations with FLTRP.” Arnout also mentioned that his successor Niels Peter Thomas is also an old friend of FLTRP and he believes that under Niel’s leadership, the cooperation between Springer and FLTRP will achieve even greater success.
On behalf of Macmillan Education, Emma Bourne thanked Arnout for his contribution in supporting the development of English education in China and deepening the cooperation with FLTRP during his tenure. She also paid tribute to Ms Wang and FLTRP colleagues for their hard work in expanding the cooperation of two sides in various fields. She hoped that the partnership could be developed to a new level under the leadership of Niels.
Zhang Lixin, Managing Director of Basic Education Publishing Department and Zhang Wen, Deputy Director of International Cooperation Department also attended the meeting.
