The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a non-profit U.S. cultural organization, pledged on Wednesday to resume and expand its study programs in the United States for Chinese museum curators in the next two years.

Angelica Zander Rudenstine, the foundation's program officer for museum and art conservation, said at the 2006 Sino-American Museum Forum that the foundation would "help develop a new generation of museum leaders" by offering study programs for another six or seven Chinese curators in 2007 and 2008.

The New York-based foundation started the programs for Chinese curators in 2001 in cooperation with the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China.

The program benefited 11 Chinese curators until 2005, when the foundation decided to suspend the program for two years in order to arrange the Sino-American Museum Forum.

The three-month program would enable Chinese curators to undertake "residencies" in U.S. museums, where they could learn how "American museums are structured and administered, and how they organize their scholarly, curatorial and educational activities", said Rudenstine.

The New York-based Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Washington-based Freer and Sackler Galleries, and the Ohio-based Cleveland Museum of Art would assist in the program.

"Previous programs have proved to be effective and successful," she said.

Zheng Xinmiao, China's Vice Minister of Culture, said China had more than 2,000 museums, 80 percent of them set up in the last two decades.

"These museums face a lack of qualified leaders, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation program could help improve the situation."

(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2006)