Outstanding front-line engineers are honored during the WLA Engineering Technology Innovation and Development Forum.

A total of 19 front-line engineers were honored as Shanghai's outstanding engineers during the WLA Engineering Technology Innovation and Development Forum held in the city.

It's the first time they have been recognized for solving complicated engineering problems in fields like integrated circuits, medical apparatus and instruments, aerospace, artificial intelligence and new energy.

One of the winners, Zhu Jiamin, chief engineer of Shanghai Superconductor, said the award has greatly heartened engineers like him.

According to Zhu, engineers are often neglected or have their achievements belittled because they are not like scientists who start from scratch to discover something; instead they help industrialize those scientific results.

"Engineers are as important as scientists," he insisted.

Leading scientists and experts share their views on relations between scientists and engineers at the forum.

Barry Barish, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, agreed.

Taking the development of laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) as an example, he told the forum that accurate and systematic engineering is helping run large-scale science facilities like LIGO.

It's the interaction between engineering and science that makes scientific discoveries turn into reality, Barish noted, advocating building bridges between the two groups.

The forum is part of the fifth World Laureates Forum, which will be officially held on November 6-7.