Graduated from Nanjing Agriculture University in horticulture in 1986, MS in ethnoecology in 1990 from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, PhD in agronomy in 2002 from China Agriculture University, Xu Jianchu is an ethnobotanist working on land systems in coupled social-ecological systems in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan Region. He has strong background in interdisciplinary research on landscape restoration, agroforestry system and circular agriculture. He is the top 1% of global scientists for the Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in plant and animal sciences in during 2017 and 2022 respectively. Jianchu is listed in the Reuters Top 1000 World’s Top Climate Scientists and received Innovations in Sustainability Science Award from Ecological Society of America in 2019. He is editor-in-chief for the journal: Circular Agricultural System. Professor Xu has published over 500 SCI journal articles including Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Fungal Diversity, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Global Environmental Change, PLOS Biology and Conservation Biology with 35368 citation and h-index 86. He is coordinating the Mountain Futures Program, which is a global initiative to support knowledge innovations for smallholders in mountain regions worldwide.