The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Graduate School started a program in Beijing Friday in a bid to encourage interdisciplinary scientific research among young scientists working for the academy.

Ding Kequan, coordinator of the "Hundreds of Talents" Forum, said that the program is aimed at forming sophisticated research bases at the CAS graduate school for the outstanding young scientists who studied abroad but are now working for the CAS.

Under the program of "Hundreds of Talents", the CAS plans to attract about 500 excellent young scientists from overseas from 2001 to 2005, or 100 such researchers each year.

"We need to create an innovation-oriented environment for those promising scientists," said Ding, a math professor at the CAS graduate school.

Ding said the graduate school encourages those overseas scientists to enlist graduate students. They will also be required to lead some research programs or labs.

By 2005, Ding said, the program might have a talent pool of 100 to 150 researchers or graduate students.

Ding said the current focuses of the forum are nuclear magnetic resonance signals processing, biomedical imaging analysis, molecular biology, brain nerve bionics, insurance and actuarial science, financial risk analysis and nanometer-level space materials.

"The interdisciplinary scientific research might bring about breakthroughs in the near future," Ding said.

The forum will also organize series of workshops and lectures. Tao Jinhua, professor at Central Missouri State University, Fang Xiaohong, professor at the CAS Institute of Chemistry, and Weng Yuxiang, professor at the CAS Institute of Physics, gave the first lectures Friday at the graduate school.

(Xinhua News Agency June 19, 2004)