On the just concluded conference for CAS and CAE Member election, another 14 National Distinguished Young Scholars were elected as Members of CAS, and 4 as Members of CAE.

Since its establishment in 1994, the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars has been operated under the principles of "relying on experts, developing democracy, selecting the best proposals to support in a just and rational way", as well as the mechanism of "encouraging innovation in a scientific and democratic way". Based on fierce competition and strict evaluation procedures, the Fund has supported a batch of academic leaders in their prime of life, who have great innovation capacity and potential in challenging world science frontier.

Among the newly elected CAS and CAE Members, 18 are recipients of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. 15 of the 18 newly elected members were funded during 1994-1998 and 8 are project leaders of NSFC's Fund for Creative Groups. Up to the present, there have been altogether 37 Members of CAS and 11 Members of CAE who have been supported by NSFC programs.

According to statistics, most of the CAS Members elected after 1999 under the age of 50 have been funded by NSFC's National Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. Through years of hard work and unremitting efforts on the way of exploration and discovery, they have made influential achievements which represent the highest level of Chinese science.

In the process of carrying out the strategy of "strengthening the country through talents", NSFC will give full play to the advantages of the Science Fund System and the people-oriented policy, stress innovation on system and management, promote team-work, further extend support to talent fostering, and cultivate and attract more and better S&T talents, especially academic leaders and pave a firm basis of China's sustainable development for S&T, society and economy.