China has become a scientific superpower

In 2019, The Economist examined the country’s research environment and asked whether China could somehow become a scientific superpower. Today, the answer to this question is unequivocal: yes. Chinese scientists have recently gained the upper hand in two closely monitored indicators of high-quality science, and the growth of top-notch research in the country shows no signs of slowing down. The old scientific world order, dominated by America, Europe, and Japan, is coming to an end.

One way to measure the quality of research in a country is to count the number of impactful articles produced each year, i.e., publications that are most often cited by other scientists in their own, later work. According to Clarivate, a research and analytics company, in 2003 America produced 20 times as many such important articles as China. By 2013, America had produced about four times as many top papers, and in the most recent release of data, which looks at articles through 2022, China has surpassed both America and the entire European Union (EU).

Of course, citation-based indicators are subject to change. Scientists can and do find ways to increase the number of mentions of their paper in other studies, and a recent working paper by three economists, Qi Shumin, Claudia Steinwender, and Pierre Azoulay, argues that Chinese researchers cite their fellow Chinese much more often than Western researchers do theirs. But now China is leading the world in other indicators that are less prone to manipulation. It leads the Nature Index, created by the publishing house of the same name, which counts articles published in a number of prestigious journals. To be selected for publication, articles must be approved by a panel of reviewers who assess the quality of the research, novelty, and potential for impact. When the index was first launched in 2014, China was ranked second, but its contribution to the relevant papers was less than a third of that of the United States. By 2023, China was ranked first.

Today, China leads the world in the physical sciences, chemistry, earth and environmental sciences, both in terms of the Nature Index and citation rates (see Figure 2). But America and Europe still have significant leads in both general biology and medical sciences. “Engineering is a major Chinese discipline in the modern period,” says Professor Marginson, “I think it’s partly because of military technology and partly because it’s what the nation needs to develop.

Applied research is China’s strong suit. For example, the country is dominated by the number of publications on perovskite solar panels, which allow for much more efficient conversion of sunlight into electricity than conventional silicon cells. Chinese chemists have developed a new way to extract hydrogen from seawater using a special membrane to separate pure water, which can be separated by electrolysis. In May 2023, it was announced that scientists, in cooperation with a state-owned Chinese energy company, had developed a pilot weeping hydrogen farm off the country’s southeast coast.

Китай також зараз видає більше патентів, ніж будь-яка інша країна, хоча багато хто з них стосується поступової зміни конструкції, а не справді оригінальних винаходів. Нові розробки, зазвичай, поширюються і приймаються повільніше у Китаї, ніж Заході. Але його потужна промислова база у поєднанні з дешевою енергією означає, що він може швидко розгорнути великомасштабне виробництво фізичних інновацій, таких як матеріали.

Зростання якості та кількості китайської науки навряд чи зупиниться найближчим часом. Витрати на наукові та технологічні дослідження продовжують зростати — уряд оголосив про збільшення фінансування на 10% у 2024 році. Країна навчає безліч молодих учених. У 2020 році китайські університети надали 1,4 мільйона інженерних ступенів, що в сім разів більше, ніж в Америці. В даний час Китай підготував на рівні бакалаврату в 2,5 рази більше провідних дослідників ІІ, ніж Америка. Очікується, що до 2025 року китайські університети випускатимуть майже вдвічі більше докторів наук у галузі науки та технологій, ніж американські.

Джерело: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/06/12/china-has-become-a-scientific-superpower

Надаємо послуги з консалтингу наукових публікацій у журналах категорій А та Б. Працюємо на ринку більше 4 років та маємо значний міжнародний досвід. Залишайте заявку для консультації.