A closer look at research growth in China: past, present and the future

Image: Pixabay A growing market Research in China has shown remarkable growth in the past decade. The Chinese government now spends more on research and development than the European Union, after taking into account the purchasing power of its currency, and China produces the most research articles than any other nation, excluding the United States. China’s global market share of publication output grew from 2.5% in 1997 to 18.8% in 2015 (Scopus), and at BioMed Central we have seen an increase in Chinese author submissions from 2.2% in 2005 to 18.3% in 2015. China has a huge workforce with more scientists than the USA, and it boasts some of the World’s best institutions including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University. Chinese authors also feature in around 1/5 of the World’s most cited articles. Although there has been phenomenal growth in Chinese research output, the impact of this research is not matching the growth rate. In order for this growth to be sustainable, China now face some key challenges to improve the quality and impact of their research. Back to basics Despite the huge growth in Chinese research, basic science has been somewhat ignored; only around 5% of China’s research and development funding goes to basic research projects, compared to 24% in France, 18% in the USA, and 13% in Japan. The National Natural Science Foundation (NFSC), China’s leading basic science funding source, has called for a focus on basic research. The NFSC ...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs