An expert panel on science popularization was established in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Jan 15.

The expert panel, launched by Inner Mongolia Association for Science and Technology, has welcomed more than 160 members from regional universities and scientific research institutes.

Ma Kui, Party secretary of the regional science and technology association introduced that the association made great progress in popularizing science and technology in the past year.

According to him, the association has organized four large-scale events in 103 banners and counties and more than 1100 lectures on science and technology, benefiting over 400,000 people in the area.

During the past two years, the Chinese population have become more scientifically literate, with the ratio of residents who are scientifically literate scoring 7.63 percent this year, 2.49 percentage point higher than 2015.

According to the association, it plans to increase the scientifically literate ratio to 10 percent.