According to the Nature news article, China’s contributions have been continually increasing since the index was launched in 2014. It also emerged as the top-ranking country for physical sciences and chemistry in 2021.
The index takes into account the percentage of authors from a nation on each published paper. An article authored by a group of researchers who are all China-based would yield a “share” of 1 for China. In 2022, China had a share of nearly 19,400, while the US had 17,610.
But the United States had a share of almost 790 in two major journals, Nature and Science – significantly higher than China’s 186.
China was also behind the US when it came to the number of articles with at least one author from the country. China had a count of around 23,500 articles for that category in 2022, while the US had almost 25,200.
Beijing wants China to become a global power in science and technology. In February, President Xi Jinping said robust basic research would be the driving force to achieve this, and that diverse funding sources, international collaboration and training were crucial for tech independence.
China is the world’s second-largest spender on scientific research, with R&D funding surpassing 3 trillion yuan (US$426.6 billion) in 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
China aims to become a global power in science and technology. Photo: Shutterstock
Data provided by the world’s largest scientific literature publisher, Elsevier, shows that China and the US are the largest bilateral research collaborators globally, with each producing around 20 per cent of the world’s scholarly output between 2017 and 2021.
China has also overtaken the United States for the first time to lead the world in the number of most-cited papers, a key indicator of scientific influence, according to a report released in August.
Between 2018 and 2020, China contributed 27.2 per cent of the world’s most-cited papers – those ranking in the top 1 per cent in terms of citations – while the US accounted for 24.9 per cent, the “Japanese Science and Technology Indicators” report said.
China also claimed the top spot from the US in 2016 for the number of scientific papers published, according to Science magazine.
