From May 19 to 22, the 18th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Porous Media (InterPore 2026) was held in Nantes, France. More than 800 top scholars from more than 40 countries around the world gathered to discuss the frontiers of porous media science. To honor Professor Yao Jun from our university for the 2025 InterPore Lifetime Achievement Medal (the first Chinese recipient in this field), the conference specially set up the MS20 Special Session in Honor of Jun Yao, making it one of the most anticipated academic highlights of this year's conference.

This conference featured 4 keynote presentations, 8 invited presentations, 20 special seminars, and 4 short-term courses, totaling 414 oral presentations and 328 poster presentations, engaging in in-depth exchanges around five major frontier trends: multi-scale flow, multi-session coupling, high-precision characterization, data-driven simulation, and green low-carbon and energy transition.

Group photo of teachers and students attending the Oil and Gas Seepage Research Center

To honor Professor Yao Jun's foundational contributions in the field of porous media, multiphase flow, and oil and gas seepage, the InterPore Academic Committee has specially organized an honorary session. A total of 67 submissions were received, with 45 Oral presentations presented brilliantly across 8 sessions, setting a record for the largest Lifetime Achievement Medal recipient special session ever held by InterPore, comprehensively showcasing the cutting-edge innovations of the Oil and Gas Seepage Research Center, represented by Professor Yao Jun.

The session focused on unconventional oil and gas seepage mechanisms, digital core and pore network models, multi-field coupled numerical simulation, CO₂ storage and underground hydrogen storage, microscopic visualization experiments, intelligent algorithms, and engineering optimization. It systematically presented Professor Yao Jun's multi-scale, multimodal, multi-field coupled seepage theory system, as well as breakthrough advances in fracture-fracture-cavity coupled simulation, digital core technology, large-scale numerical simulation methods, and other fields, achieving a transition from traditional oil and gas development to CCUS, geothermal, Extensions of green and low-carbon directions such as hydrogen energy storage provide solid theoretical support for energy transition and carbon neutrality.

Professor Yang Yongfei delivered a keynote speech at the conference

During the conference, the team from the Oil and Gas Seepage Research Center achieved fruitful results. Professor Yang Yongfei, as the only invited Chinese scholar, delivered a keynote speech at the conference, systematically introducing the cutting-edge advances and future directions of seepage mechanics in unconventional oil and gas reservoirs; Faculty and students contributed a total of 11 oral presentations at breakout sessions, covering core areas such as pore scale mechanisms, multi-scale simulation, numerical simulation, and engineering optimization, fully demonstrating the center's core competitiveness in theoretical innovation, technological breakthroughs, and international cooperation.

Professor Yao Jun is the founder of our university's Oil and Gas Seepage Research Center. He has long been dedicated to research on multiphase flow in porous media and oil and gas seepage mechanics, establishing a modern theoretical framework for oil and gas seepage, overcoming a series of key scientific and engineering challenges, and promoting China's porous media research to the international forefront. He has been elected as an Honorary Member of SPE, the first Chinese recipient of the InterPore Lifetime Achievement Medal, published 12 monographs and textbooks, authored over 400 papers, received over 27,000 Google citations, had an H-index of 79, was selected three times as Clarivate Globally Highly Cited Scientist, and is the only recipient in the field of petroleum engineering. As the founding chairman of InterPore China, he has continuously promoted academic exchange between China and abroad and deep integration of industry, academia, and research, making milestone contributions to the internationalization of the discipline.