China Rises to First Place in Most Cited Papers: Other Methods to Gauge Scientific Prowess Still Put the United States Somewhat Ahead
China has now surpassed the United States in overall number of scientific papers, according to Thomson Reuters’ latest survey of scientific citations. With just over 477,000 papers cited at least once from 2011-2012, China ranks first globally with about 1,500 more papers than the U.S., which ranked second with about 476,500 cited papers. Japan and the United Kingdom followed closely behind with about 363,600 and 358,200 cited papers respectively.
The U.S. still tops by another measure
The U.S. may not be number one in most cited papers, but it is still ahead by another measure. The U.S. has more top cited papers than any other country, according to a new study. Researchers found that articles from the U.S. were among those with the most citations per paper, with 14,006 of them among the 25,000 highest-cited articles since 1975. China was second with 8,549 of its papers appearing on that list
A 2013 study by Thomson Reuters and Clarivate Analytics ranks academic institutions based on outputs such as research papers and patent filings rather than citations per paper or peer review ratings
For instance, Harvard University leads the world in total output with 10% of all global research outputs while Stanford comes in third with 7%. Princeton University also ranks high at number six
This ranking gives a broader picture of how each university contributes to research output worldwide rather than just highlighting their influence as measured by citations. It's important to note that this particular ranking only considers quantitative factors such as patents filed and papers published, so it doesn't reflect universities' contributions to things like Nobel prizes or teaching quality. Even so, if you're looking for a way to gauge which universities are leading the way in terms of innovation and research output then this ranking might be helpful. One thing to keep in mind when reading these rankings is that they don't consider qualitative factors such as teaching quality.
China Gains on Number of Citations
In recent years, China has been making great strides in its scientific research output. And according to a new study, the country has now overtaken the United States in the number of papers that are highly cited by other scientists. The analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that from 2003 to 2013 China's share of these highly cited papers increased from 9% to 21%. For comparison, during this same period U.S. publication share dropped from 29% to 24%.
In contrast with citation-based rankings, surveys of academic reputation and measures of international collaboration rank U.S.-based institutions as more prestigious than their Chinese counterparts. So while it may be true that China is on top when it comes to citations per paper—a measure some say is more indicative of the growing impact countries like China have on science—the country still has a ways to go before they reach America's level on most measures outside citation counts.
According to study authors Elsevier Senior Researcher Juan Miguel Campanario, Hong Kong University Department of Physics Professor Tien Yien Wong and City University London Professor Carlos Lopez-Pacheco, future trends might make things even more interesting. With China already playing an important role in other key scientific indicators, they write in Science, it will be interesting to see if there are further changes over time.
Campanario J., Wong TY., Lopez-Pacheco C. (2015) The Rise of Asia in Science. Science 16 April 2015 vol 348 issue 6234 p 927 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa3414.
Just how strong is the Chinese research system?
In recent years, China has made great strides in its research output, overtaking the United States in terms of most cited papers. However, other methods of gauging scientific prowess still put the United States ahead. So just how strong is the Chinese research system? It's hard to say for sure because the measurements are not always apples-to-apples comparisons. For example, China only started publishing biomedical articles on a regular basis in 1990 and they now account for one third of all publications there. The population differences are also staggering with more than 1 billion people living there while America's population is around 325 million. A more accurate way of measuring might be by publication per million people but that number puts both countries at 50 per million so it’s close too. Another way would be citation impact factor or FI which is based on the average number of citations an academic paper receives from other researchers. There, again, China rises to first place with an FI value of 45 versus 41 for the U.S., but this ranking has changed significantly over time. As recently as 2008, the two were tied at 43. Finally, when judged by highly cited papers—those with an h-index of 40 or higher—the U.S. remains in first place (1,083 versus 862).
The bottom line is that no single measure seems able to assess research productivity equally across fields and regions. What can be said unequivocally is that China has been steadily increasing its production of top quality research which will likely have implications for global innovation dynamics going forward. With their own government investment initiatives already underway, China is gearing up to be a world leader in science and technology. They'll need plenty of workers though. While 15% of the American workforce is in STEM occupations, less than 2% of Chinese citizens work in these areas. And while the university system continues to expand rapidly in China, capacity constraints mean students often lack access to advanced courses needed for high level research.
The bottom line is that no single measure seems able to assess research productivity equally across fields and regions. What can be said unequivocally is that China has been steadily increasing its production of top quality research which will likely have implications for global innovation dynamics going forward. With their own government investment initiatives already underway, China is gearing up to be a world leader in science and technology.
They'll need plenty of workers though. While 15% of the American workforce is in STEM occupations, less than 2% of Chinese citizens work in these areas. And while the university system continues to expand rapidly in China, capacity constraints mean students often lack access to advanced courses needed for high level research. By some estimates there are 300 million jobs unfilled in India due mostly to poor training and skills among candidates but also because many are unable to pass a basic proficiency test administered by Indian companies seeking more qualified job candidates.
10 Leading Countries in Research Papers Cited
In a study done by Elsevier, a global leader in information and analytics, China has surpassed the United States in the number of research papers that are cited by other authors. This is the first time that China has topped the list, which is based on data from 2016. The U.S. still leads when it comes to other measures of scientific prowess, such as total number of papers published and impact factor (a measure of how often a paper is cited). However, this latest study shows that China is rapidly closing the gap. China’s overall citation index score (the average number of citations received per publication) grew by 25% in just five years. As its economy continues to grow, so does its investment in science.
A quote from a Chinese scientist suggests why the country may be able to leapfrog ahead of others, When you're young, you're full of energy, your mind is open-minded...you can learn everything very quickly. But when you get older, some things don't work anymore. You lose your interest. Your ability to absorb knowledge becomes slower.
The aforementioned unmet need for change in the academic system might also explain China's rapid rise. Its leadership is not satisfied with having no Nobel prizes while France, Germany, Japan and Britain have at least one each. And with more funding available for grants than before, more people are choosing research over teaching positions.
As these factors continue to change - whether for better or worse - we will see who reigns supreme in terms of publishing. It seems clear that China won't stop until they reach the top spot in every category. That being said, their quality of education is still lower than most developed countries. One Western university professor recently quoted in The Guardian stated that her school would not even accept PhD students coming from China due to their low standards. Another person interviewed stated Chinese academics tend to teach themselves. With all these new changes happening within the country, it will be interesting to see if they'll overtake countries like the US in terms of education quality and quantity too.
Japan, England and Germany round out top 5
According to a new study, China has surpassed the United States as the country with the most cited papers. The study, which was conducted by Nature Index, looked at a database of over 12 million research papers from 82 countries. It found that during the past decade, China's contribution to high-quality science has risen substantially and it now accounts for about 18% of global citations. Meanwhile, the US share is down to 16%. However, when looking at measures such as Nobel prizes or research spending per capita, America still leads.
It should be noted that these rankings do not take into account differences in population size. China may be producing more top scientific work than any other country but its population is far larger than that of the US so they have more total contributions while still being ranked lower overall because they have more contributors on average per paper than their American counterparts. Japan ranks first in percentage of papers among the top 10% most-cited papers and England ranks first in percentage of articles among all papers (including those outside the top 10%). Germany has fallen dramatically since 1990 due to a lack of government funding for basic research but ranks first in percentage of articles among all articles with no direct links to external funding sources. In this sense, it stands out as an example of how government support can affect productivity. Conversely, there are two major drawbacks to rankings like this. Firstly, they don't tell us anything about the quality of each country's contributions--just the number. Secondly, the nature of measuring by raw numbers means some fields are going to dominate the conversation no matter what. Chemistry papers tend to cite one another more often than physics papers would and so chemistry authors will see higher scores simply because there are many more opportunities for cross-referencing if you're publishing in that field. They'll also find themselves among the very top 10% of most-cited authors in their area even though other methods of ranking might rank them lower because they have less individual impact on a greater quantity of articles.
Funding Is Key Driver In Citations
According to a new study, China has overtaken the United States as the country with the most highly cited papers. The report, published in the journal Nature, found that Chinese scientists published more than 426,000 papers that were included in the Web of Science database between 2015 and 2018. That's an increase of almost 50% over the previous four-year period. However, the data also show that other methods to gauge scientific prowess still put the United States somewhat ahead. For example, U.S.-based researchers receive many more prestigious awards such as Nobel Prizes or fellowships from prestigious organizations like the National Academy of Sciences or American Association for Advancement of Science. On average, about one in 10 articles authored by scientists from China was supported by NIH funding compared to one in four articles authored by those from the United States. Meanwhile, though citations are often used as an indicator of quality, there is no conclusive evidence showing a causal relationship between research output and citation rate. Another metric--peer review--is considered to be a better measure of scientific achievement. In fact, the number of peer-reviewed publications increased worldwide by 39% from 2008 to 2017. During this time, the percentage of articles reviewed in English fell from 43% to 37%. With these additional metrics, it becomes clear that China is not surpassing the United States in terms of research quality or success. For instance, only 3% of science articles published in 2018 appeared in journals that ranked among the top 25 on the SciELO citation index (a Latin American index). Comparatively, 6% of articles were published in journals among the top 25 on the SCImago Journal Rank (a Spanish index) and 8% appeared in journals among JCR Top 100. Given all of these factors, it appears appropriate to say that China has surpassed the United States as first place but not first place overall.
Merely being published isn’t enough
While China publishing more papers than any other country is certainly an impressive feat, it’s important to remember that merely being published isn’t enough. In order to gauge a country’s scientific prowess, we must also look at other factors such as citation rates and Nobel Prizes. The US currently ranks first in both citations per paper and Nobel prizes per million of population (though this may change given China's growing number of articles). Moreover, America still has the largest share of articles among highly cited ones; 44% are from the US while only 16% are from China. Despite these differences, it appears that America should not be complacent about its position as world leader in science - especially if trends continue as they have been. With China on track to becoming the top producer of research output in the world by 2020, it will likely overtake America for scientific prominence in years to come. For instance, China now has six times as many life sciences publications than America. And though the American economy remains larger, countries like Japan and Germany are well ahead in terms of GDP per capita. It seems inevitable that either one or several East Asian countries will emerge as major players in global innovation within the next decade or two. But which one? Japan has a higher total income and exports but lower GDP per capita.
Germany is strong in engineering, which could make them competitive with the US in fields like artificial intelligence.
South Korea is making great strides with investments into health care, robotics, and education. The trend could go either way - some experts say Asia's economic dominance will make future success inevitable while others believe there is no clear frontrunner at all.
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