China's Ministry of Science and Technology and the US National Science Foundation jointly launched a program on Monday encouraging cooperation between young researchers, crienglish.com reported Monday.

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.

An NSF official said the foundation has chosen the 27 best students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University and other prestigious US schools.

The US students are scheduled to work in labs at Tsinghua University, Peking University and China Academy of Sciences institutes from June 21 to August 24.

(CRI June 22, 2004)