On September 12, 2010, President of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, paid a visit to the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, and was warmly welcomed by the director Prof. YAO Tandong.

President Grimsson was firstly shown around the two key laboratories, and introduced of instrument and experiment done at the Institute. He then joined a meeting with some major scientific and administrative staff of the Institute. During the meeting, Prof. Yao gave a brief introduction of the research contents, achievements, and progress at the Institute in the past few years, highlighting the Third Pole Environment (TPE) Program as one of the major international cooperative initiatives.

Prof.XU Baiqing introduced to President Grimsson of TEL	Prof. DING Lin replied to President Grimsson's interest in LCPU

President Grimsson highly approved the achievements and progresses of the Institute, showing particular interest in the TPE program, and hoping to be useful in linking the Third Pole research with the Arctic research. He also wished that more corporations would be established between Iceland and China to cultivate young scientists, and to jointly contribute to global environmental research.

President Grimsson met with ITP scientific and administrative staff.

Prof. Yao was invited by the President to visit Iceland to help promote the bilateral collaboration in environmental research.