Participants in this year's program have various areas of interest. Other than the usual topics of literature and language, some scholars want to study China's foreign policy, the government system, the Belt and Road Initiative, the film industry and the ancient Chinese army.

The scale of the program will be expanded to include more foreigners in the future, Zhu says.

Scholars at different foreign institutes and colleges, as well as leaders from other fields, aged between 30 and 45, are welcome to join the program, Zhu adds.

The program is now accessible to candidates recommended by Chinese embassies around the world and by CASS. The recruitment channel will be enlarged but the details are still under discussion.

"We hope these scholars can be more active and exert their influence in helping spread Chinese culture," Zhu says.

Last year, Eric Lefebvre from the Guimet Museum in Paris did three weeks of research at the Palace Museum during the program.

He held lectures on French museums' collections of Chinese antiques and on Chinese relics from the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), which attracted lots of Palace Museum staffers, says Zeng Jun, head of Chinese painting at the museum.

When Lefebvre returned to Paris, he helped curate a show of Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) artifacts in Guimet Museum in September. The exhibition was among the largest of its kind outside China.

"It was a win-win situation. We learned from the French－their ways of relic protection, how they curate and their working style," Zeng says.

And Lefebvre's knowledge of Chinese relics helped promote Chinese art in France.