China’s rapid rise in global science and engineering
In the last 10 years China has made formidable progress in science and engineering fields and it is now the world’s third largest producer of peer-reviewed research articles after the European Union and United States, according to a major report published by the US National Science Foundation.
According to Science and Engineering Indicators 2014, out of the world’s 827,705 articles published in 2011, researchers in the combined 28 European Union countries produced 254,482 articles (31%), the United States 212,394 (26%), China 89,894 (11%) and Japan 47,106 (6%).
Therefore, said Dr Michael Reksulak, a researcher in the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, a unit of the US National Science Foundation: “The four major producers of the world’s science accounted for 73% of papers in science and engineering published in peer-reviewed journals in 2011.”
Of the EU member states, Germany was the highest producer with 46,259 articles, followed by the United Kingdom with 46,035 articles.
China on the rise
Interestingly, whereas the proportion of papers authored by scientists from the European Union, the US and Japan declined marginally between 2001-11, those written by Chinese researchers grew at an average of about 15% annually during the same period.
“The number of articles authored by the Chinese rose from 3% of global research output to 11%,” said Reksulak. Asia as a whole published more than twice as many engineering articles as the United States and 50% more than the European Union in 2011.
Despite China publishing 17% of the world’s engineering articles in 2011, equal to the United States’ share, the latter’s publications received more citations.
“The share of Chinese research engineering articles cited by scholars outside the country has fallen over the past two decades, indicating that China’s increased research output is being used mostly within its borders,” said Dr Denis Simon, an expert on Chinese research and development at Arizona State University.
According to Science and Engineering Indicators 2014 – a biennial report from the US National Science Foundation on the status of global science and technology – since the mid-1990s, China has made significant investments in research.
“Whereas the United States is still the largest research and development performer, accounting for about a third of global research and development, China is now the second largest research and development performing country, accounting for almost 15% of the world total,” says the report released on 7 February.
Research intensity
Amid global awareness that innovation in the form of new goods, services and processes builds new knowledge and technology, many countries have been keen to improve their visibility in research and development and technical higher education.
Research and development expenditures worldwide doubled to US$1.435 trillion from US$753 billion a decade earlier.
In the last two decades, China has been rapidly raising its research and development, or R&D, intensity by devoting more money to science and technology. R&D intensity is the proportion of gross domestic product allocated to scientific research and development.
China’s research and development intensity – which accounted for 1.98% of GDP – has “increased sharply” and has caught up with the combined European Union expenditure of 1.97%, according to OECD science and technology indicators released on 17 January.
While historically Japan had higher R&D intensity than most other large economies, several countries have recently surpassed it. Currently, Israel has the highest ratio at 4.4%. South Korea is second at 4% and Finland third at 3.8%, while Japan and Sweden are both at 3.4%.
Other countries ranked by Science and Engineering Indicators 2014 as having a high research intensity include Denmark at 3.1%, Taiwan at 3%, Germany and Switzerland both at 2.9% and the United States in tenth position at 2.8%.
But according to Mark Boroush of the Research and Development Statistics Program at the US National Science Foundation, most economies with higher research and development intensity are much smaller than the United States.
“Appropriate comparisons should be Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Japan, which allocated respectively 2.9%, 2.2%, 1.8% and 3.4% of their GDP to research,” said Boroush, lead investigator on global patterns of research and development expenditures.
Nevertheless, Boroush warned against perceiving technology as highly innovative. Research and development does not necessarily indicate innovation, as one does not need R&D companies to make innovations. “Innovation could originate anywhere,” said Boroush.
Quality higher education
Science and Engineering Indicators 2014 identified the quality of higher education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics – STEM – as critical to providing the advanced work skills necessary to strengthen an innovation-based economic landscape.
In this regard, the US awarded the largest number of science and engineering PhDs of any country followed by China, Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom.
“Of 200,000 doctorates in science and engineering earned worldwide in 2010, about 33,000 were awarded by universities in the United States, China 31,000, Russia 16,000, Germany 12,000 and the United kingdom 11, 000,” says the report.
But China leads the world when factoring in doctorates in the biological, physical, Earth, atmospheric, ocean and agricultural sciences and computer sciences.
“The issue is that the numbers of doctoral degrees in natural sciences and engineering have risen dramatically in China, whereas the numbers awarded in the United States, South Korea, and many European countries have risen more modestly,” says the report.
Also, in the United States only 57% of doctorates were earned by citizens and permanent residents, while temporary visa holders obtained the remainder.
Available statistics indicated that in 2010 more than 5.5 million first degrees were awarded in science and engineering worldwide, with students in China earning about 22% against the European Union’s 17% and the United States’ 10%.
“Currently, science and engineering degrees account for about one-third of all bachelor degrees awarded in the United States, 60% in Japan and about 50% in China,” said Jaquelina Falkenheim, senior analyst in the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics at the US National Science Foundation.
In her analysis of the global higher education system, Falkenheim noted that only 5% of all bachelor degrees awarded in 2010 were in engineering – compared to 31% in China. Other places with a high proportion of engineering degrees were Singapore, Iran, South Korea and Taiwan.
Emerging global competition for scientific innovation leadership seems to be encouraging governments to boost university enrolments in science and engineering fields. The number of these degrees awarded in China, Taiwan, Turkey, Germany and Poland more than doubled between 2000 and 2012.
“During this period, science and engineering first university degrees awarded in the United States, Australia, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and South Korea also increased between 23% and 56%,” said Falkenheim. Marginal declines were noted in France (14%), Japan (9%) and Spain (4%).
US sets the bar in influence
Despite intense competition in visibility, performance and investment in STEM fields, the United States continues to set the bar in terms of influential research results. For instance, from 2002-12, researchers in the US authored 48% of the world’s top 1% of cited papers.
American inventors were also awarded the highest number of high value patents registered in the world’s largest markets – the US, European Union and Japan. According to the report, there were few such patents issued in China and India.
One outstanding aspect that cannot be missed in the 600-page Science and Engineering Indicators 2014 report is China’s catch-up efforts. Apart from upping spending on R&D, China now has the largest contingent of doctoral students in American research universities.
Between 1991 and 2011, more than 63,000 Chinese students were awarded doctorates in science and engineering from leading research universities in the United States, accounting for 27% of 235,582 such awards to foreign students.
“Over the 20-year period, the number of science and engineering doctorates earned by Chinese nationals has more than doubled,” says the report.
And so the battle for supremacy in the fiercely contested areas of global leadership in science and technology will likely be decided in laboratories in American universities.
COMMENT
Large amount of publications is not necessarily translated to quality research publications. It would be interesting to track over time rates of retraction from countries and rates of fraud.
Christopher Weir on the University World News Facebook page
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