From July 14 to 18, the 14th International Conference on Heteroatom Chemistry (ICHAC-14), was held in Tianjin hosted by Nankai University. Douglas Stephen, Academician of the Royal Society of Canada, Academician of the Royal Society of England, Academician from the University of Toronto, Guy Bertrand, Academician of the European Academy of Sciences, Academician of the French Academy of Sciences, Academician of the German Academy of Sciences from the University of California, Jun Chen, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice president of Nankai University, Qilin Zhou, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from Nankai University, Fengling Qing, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shoufei Zhu, vice president of Nankai University, Jing Li, former vice president of Nankai University and director of the National Engineering Research Center for Pesticides and relevant directors of functional departments of Nankai University attended the opening ceremony.

　　Jun Chen first welcomed the experts, scholars and guests attended, and briefly introduced Nankai University and Nankai chemistry. Chen said that the chemistry discipline of Nankai University has insisted on targeting the major strategic needs of the country and the world's scientific and technological frontier, and a series of milestone achievements have emerged. The purpose of this conference is to build a platform for sharing academic views and exchanging cutting-edge achievements, inherit the fine tradition of the conference, and promote the research and development of heteroatom chemistry to a new height. He hoped that participating experts and scholars will carry out in-depth exchanges and cooperation through this meeting, and promote more scientific and technological innovation achievements to benefit the world and people.

　　Derek P. Gates, member of the International Advisory Committee of the International Conference on Heteroatom Chemistry, congratulated the conference on its successful convening, introduced the history and tradition of the International Conference on Heteroatom Chemistry to the participants. He thanked Nankai University for its support and the organizing committee for its diligent efforts. He hoped that all participants could make good use of the platform set up by this meeting to fully exchange and share their experience and research results in the field of heteroatom chemistry.

The 14th International Conference on Heteroatom Chemistry focused on the frontier research direction of heteroatom chemistry, and attracted more than 400 experts, scholars and graduate representatives from well-known universities and research institutions at home and abroad, including the University of California, the University of Toronto, Berlin University of technology, Japan Institute of Science and Chemistry, Monash University, Kyoto University, Nanyang Technological University, Birmingham University, Seoul National University, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong etc. The conference set up three sub-venues and lasted for three days. 123 oral speakers gave wonderful academic reports in the conference, and 104 poster reporters gave wonderful presentations. The participants discussed the frontier topics and development trends in the field of heteroatomic chemistry.

The opening ceremony was presided over by Chunming Cui, president of the conference and director of the State Key Laboratory of Elemento-organic Chemistry of Nankai University.

The International Conference on Heteroatom Chemistry (ICHAC) was founded under the initiative of the International Committee on Heteroatom Chemistry every 2-3 years since 1987. Up to now, it has been successfully held for 13 times, and recent five times have been successfully held in the University of Oviedo (2009), Kyoto University (2012), Caen University (2015), Vancouver University (2017) and Czech University of Technology (2019). The conference aims to gather top academic scientists, researchers at home and abroad to exchange ideas and share their experience and research results in the field of heteroatom chemistry.