In a post[1] The prestigious British weekly The Economist, which focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture, analyzed in its June 2024 issue how China has become a scientific superpower. Its growth over the past five years has been remarkable. Chinese scientists have surpassed the rest of the world in several indicators of high-quality science. The long-standing dominance of European and American science appears to have ended.
In 2003, the United States produced 20 times more of these high-impact articles (publications that are cited more frequently by other scientists in their own work) than China, according to data obtained from Clarivate – Web of Science, the scientific analysis company (Fig. 1). By 2022, China had already surpassed both the United States and the European Union (EU).
Fig. 1 – Clarivate – Web of Science. Percentage of papers that are within the top 1% of most cited papers. (May total more than 100% due to co-authorship)
We can see that China leads in the ranking of most cited publications (top 1%) in different areas of natural sciences and engineering, while the United States and Europe still have substantial advantages in both general biology and medical sciences (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 – Clarivate – Web of Science – % of papers that are within the 1% with the most citations, broken down by area.
The Leiden Ranking, a renowned academic ranking of universities based on bibliometric indicators that measure the productivity and impact of scientific research, shows the volume of high-quality scientific research output (top 1% cited) in the areas of hard sciences and engineering (Fig. 3) and in mathematics and computer science (Fig. 4). Eight and nine Chinese universities or institutions, respectively, are among the top ten in the world. In medical sciences and biology (Fig. 5), North American universities still maintain their dominance.
Fig. 3 – Leiden Ranking – Number of publications with the most citations (top 1%) in hard science and engineering areas
Fig. 4 – Leiden Ranking – Number of publications with the most citations (top 1%) in the area of mathematics and computer science
Fig. 5 – Leiden Ranking – Number of publications with the most citations (top 1%) in the areas of medical sciences and biology.
Of course, citation-based metrics can be manipulated, and scientists often find ways to increase the number of times their article is cited in other studies. A recent paper by three economists, Qui Shumin, Claudia Steinwender, and Pierre Azoulay, argues that Chinese researchers cite their compatriots far more than Western researchers do.
Even so, China now leads the world in other benchmarks that are less likely to be manipulated. For example, it tops the Nature Index.[3]The index, created by the publisher of the same name, counts the contributions of articles appearing in several prestigious journals. For articles to be included, they must be approved by a panel of reviewers who evaluate the quality, novelty, and impact potential of the study. In 2014, China ranked second in natural science publications, but its contribution to eligible titles was less than a third of that of the United States. By 2023, China had reached first place (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6 – Nature index based on various sources for natural science publications.
How has China achieved this transformation in such a short time? The reshaping of Chinese science has been achieved by focusing on increased investment in research and development (R&D). In real terms, China's spending on R&D has increased sixteenfold since 2000, according to the most recent OECD data.[4] According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in 2021, China still lagged behind the United States in total R&D spending ($668 billion vs. $806 billion). But in terms of spending by universities and government institutions alone, China and the United States are at similar investment levels (between $130 and $140 billion). The United States spends about 50% of its budget on basic research, almost twice as much as China. In contrast, China spends 75% of its budget on basic research (Fig. 7).
Fig. 7 – Investment in university and government research – OECD
The creation of world-class universities and government institutions has also been part of China's scientific development plan. Initiatives such as Project 211, Program 985, and the League of Nine provided funding to selected laboratories to develop their research capabilities. Universities offered substantial bonuses to staff who published in high-impact international journals.
Another priority has been developing the workforce. Between 2000 and 2019, more than 6 million Chinese students left the country to study abroad, according to China’s Ministry of Education. In recent years, many of them have returned, bringing with them newly acquired skills and knowledge. OECD data suggests that, since the late 2000s, more scientists have returned to the country than have left, thanks to research talent initiatives that include financial incentives and grants.
In 2006, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) published its vision for how science should develop over the next 15 years and is meticulously investing money in strategic areas including quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, neuroscience, genetics, biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and the exploration of deep space, the deep ocean, and Earth's poles. In the field of quantum computing, some of the country's academic laboratories are on par with Western commercial laboratories in terms of scale. In 2023, researchers working in China broke the record for the number of quantum bits, or qubits, entangled within a quantum computer.
According to the same article in The Economist[5]It seems unlikely that the growth in the quality and quantity of Chinese science will stop anytime soon. Spending on scientific and technological research continues to rise: the government has announced a 10% increase in funding by 2024. And the country is training a huge number of young scientists. In 2020, Chinese universities awarded 1,4 million engineering degrees, seven times more than in the United States. China has now trained 2,5 times more top-tier AI researchers at the university level than the United States. And by 2025, Chinese universities are expected to produce nearly twice as many PhD graduates in science and technology as the United States.
Although China is producing more top-tier work, it also produces a large amount of lower-quality science. On average, papers from China tend to have a lower impact, as measured by citations, than those from the United States, Britain, or the EU. And while the select few universities have made progress, mid-tier universities have fallen behind. China’s second-tier institutions still produce relatively poor-quality work compared to their counterparts in Europe or the United States. “While China has fantastic quality at the highest level, its foundation is weak,” explains Caroline Wagner, a professor of science policy at The Ohio State University.
When it comes to basic, curiosity-driven (rather than applied) research, China is still trying to catch up: the country publishes far fewer articles than the United States in the two most prestigious scientific journals, Nature and Science. This may partly explain why China seems to be lagging behind in the discovery of entirely new technologies. Basic research is particularly scarce within Chinese companies, creating a gap between the scientists making discoveries and the industries that might ultimately use them.
But even in those areas, where the United States and Europe still hold the lead, it is unlikely that this will last for long. The life sciences and health sciences rely more on deep knowledge of specific topics, and historically it has been more difficult for China to “recapture and accelerate” them, says Tim Dafforn, a professor of biotechnology at the University of Birmingham and a former advisor to Britain’s business department. But China’s profile is growing in these fields. Although the United States currently produces roughly four times as many highly influential articles in clinical medicine, in many areas China is producing the most articles that cite this core research—a sign of developing interest that foreshadows future expansion. “In the realm of biology, China is growing remarkably fast,” says Jonathan Adams, chief scientist at Clarivate’s Science Information Institute. “Its ability to shift focus to a new area is quite remarkable.”
Quo Vadis IA is a research line of the Faculty of Engineering of the Universidad AustralThe goal of this interdisciplinary team is to contribute to the understanding of the state of the art of Artificial Intelligence by providing information on future scenarios so that public and private research organizations, universities, and companies can define long-term policies and strategies.
[1] China has become a scientific superpower (economist.com)
[2] CWTS Leiden Ranking – Ranking 2024
[3] Nature Index Annual Tables 2023: China tops natural-science table
[5] China has become a scientific superpower (economist.com)
