China's top science academy honored three foreign scientists from the Netherlands, the United States and Germany for their contributions to the Sino-foreign research cooperation Thursday in Beijing.

Bai Chunli, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), conferred the Academy's Award for International Scientific Cooperation to Dutch astronomer Richard Gordon Strom, American physicist Sokrates Theodore Pantelides and German environmental scientist Ewald Schnug.

Professor Strom has cooperated with the CAS for about 30 years. He is the only foreign expert participating in the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) project in China.

Apart from his contributions to the project's pre-research, establishment and construction, Strom has promoted the Academy to cooperate with the global radio astronomy community and helped train Chinese researchers.

Pantelides is a professor of Vanderbilt University in the United States and a pioneer in the field of semiconductor physics. Over the past two decades, he has carried out substantive cooperation with the CAS in developing new low dimensional materials.

According to Pantelides, the award is a recognition of a partnership that can provide a multifaceted outreach between the Chinese and American scientific communities.

Ewald Schnug is a German researcher in soil and environmental science. He has worked with the Academy for more than 20 years, bringing advanced fertilizer processing technology into China.

Launched in 2007, the CAS has awarded 37 foreign scientists, many of whom also received China's national award for international cooperation in science and technology.