Surpassing the US, China contributes the most scientific research in the world for the first time

China surpassed the US for the first time to become the country contributing the most research papers to top scientific journals last year.

Notably, according to data from Nature magazine, 2022 was also the first year that China surpassed the US in contributions to scientific research on the Earth and environment, although the country still ranked behind in the field of life sciences.

Data from the Nature Index tracks contributions to articles published in 82 journals across a wide range of disciplines within the natural sciences, specifically chemistry, earth and environmental sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences.

Among these top journals are Cell, Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

China's contributions have steadily increased since tracking began in 2014, according to the Nature article. The country also emerged as the top-ranked country in physical and chemical sciences in 2021.

The Nature Index also takes into account the proportion of authors from a country per published paper. If each paper written by a group of researchers all in China were counted as one point, in 2022 China would have nearly 19,400 points, while the US would have 17,610 points.

But the US contributed nearly 790 articles to two major journals, Nature and Science – significantly higher than China's 186.

China also trails the United States in the number of articles with at least one Chinese author. China had about 23,500 articles in that category in 2022, while the United States had nearly 25,200.

The Chinese government wants to make the country a global powerhouse in science and technology. In February 2023, President Xi Jinping said that strong basic research would be the driving force for China to achieve this goal, with diverse sources of international funding, cooperation and training playing a crucial role in achieving technological independence.

China is the world's second-largest spender on scientific research, with research and development funding set to exceed 3 trillion yuan ($426.6 billion) by 2022.

Data provided by the world's largest scientific literature publisher, Elsevier, shows that China and the US are the largest bilateral research partners globally, with each producing about 20% of the world's academic output from 2017 to 2021.

China has also surpassed the US for the first time to lead the world in the number of highly cited papers - a key indicator of scientific influence.

From 2018 to 2020, China contributed 27.2% of the world's most cited papers – those in the top 1% by number of citations – while the US accounted for 24.9%.

China also took the lead over the US in 2016 in the number of scientific papers published, according to Science magazine.

According to a study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), China has taken a dramatic lead over the US in most important technologies.

China leads the world in 37 of 44 key and emerging technology areas, according to a study released on March 2 by the US State Department-funded ASPI. Beijing has now established itself as the world’s leading science and technology superpower, the organization said.

The critical technologies ASPI considers cover a wide range of important areas such as defense, space, robotics, energy, environment, biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials, and critical quantum technology areas. The report points out that in some areas, all 10 leading research institutions are based in China.

According to baotintuc.vn

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