Research output

One of China's biggest scientific milestones last year was that it overtook the US for the first time as the world leader in both the quantity and quality of scientific papers published from 2018 to 2020, according to an annual report published in August by Japan's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy.

China's massive talent pool, growing research budget and sustained social and political support for research undertakings were the sources of the achievement, the report noted.

The statistics were based on yearly averages from 2018 to 2020 compiled by Clarivate, a global analyst. According to the report, Chinese research accounted for 27.2 percent — or 4,744 — of the world's top 1 percent of highly cited papers in those years. The US accounted for 24.9 percent — 4,330 papers — followed by the United Kingdom with 5.5 percent and 963 papers.

It was the first time that China had surpassed the US in this prestigious category, the report noted.

The highly cited papers were studies that outperformed 99 percent of their peers based on the number of citations received, which is a commonly used measurement of a study's quality and influence.

"China is one of the top countries in terms of both the quantity and quality of scientific papers," Shinichi Kuroki, a researcher with the Japan Science and Technology Agency, told Nikkei Asia.

"In order to become the true global leader, it will need to continue producing internationally recognized research."

Materials science, chemistry, engineering and mathematics were China's most prolific scientific fields, while US researchers were more active in clinical medicines, basic life sciences and physics, the report said.

The report's findings were consistent with a March study published by the journal Scientometrics, in which scientists found that China had overtaken the US in 2019 in the number of the top 1 percent of most-cited papers.

Caroline Wagner, the study's co-author, said the papers are seen as the cutting-edge of science. "The US has tended to rank China's work as lower quality. This appears to have changed," she noted.