China's Ministry of Science and Technology and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) jointly kicked off a program in Beijing Monday encouraging research cooperation between young researchers.

The program, named the Summer Institute in China for US Graduate Students in Science and Engineering, is under the framework of inter-governmental scientific exchange and research cooperation.

Organized by the ministry, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the NSF, the program is expected to lay a basis for future cooperation between young scientists from the two countries.

Ma Songde, vice minister of Science and Technology, said at the program's inauguration that young researchers from both China and the United States should join hands in addressing scientific and technological problems in modern times.

Kathryn Sullivan, an NSF official, said that her foundation has chosen the 27 best students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University and other prestigious US universities.

"A scientific network might bridge gaps in research fields," she said.

The US students are scheduled to work at labs at Tsinghua University, Peking University and the CAS institutes from June 21 to August 24.

(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2004)