The 4th WLA Forum kicked off Monday in Shanghai, gathering more than 130 decorated scientists, including 68 Nobel Prize winners, to attend the three-day forum.

Centering on the theme "Open science: build an open innovation ecosystem", this year's forum will host nearly 100 conferences and activities in 14 sections, covering a number of basic disciplines such as chemistry, physics, life science and mathematics.

Michael Levitt, 2013 Nobel laureate in chemistry and vice chairman of World Laureates Association (WLA), published the initiative with the same title as that of the forum at the opening ceremony, which advocates open science and encourages actions in support of open science.

The organizers also announced the establishment of the WLA Prize, which will be officially launched in 2022, with two individual awards each having a 10-million-yuan reward (about 1.56 million U.S. dollars).

The WLA Prize will focus on supporting original basic research and encouraging scientists to better participate in and serve the common well-being of all humankind, according to Roger Kornberg, WLA chairman and 2006 Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry.