BEIJING: China and the United States vied for the top spot across research fronts in 11 major scientific fields, with the US achieving only a marginal edge in overall performance, a report released recently said.
The annual report, which was published by the Institutes of Science and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Science Library of CAS, along with global analytics company Clarivate, based on its data on highly cited research papers published between 2019 and 2024.
China ranked first in six major scientific fields, namely agricultural, plant and animal sciences; ecology and environmental sciences; chemistry and materials science; physics; information science; and economics, psychology and other social sciences.
In research areas where China is relatively weaker, such as clinical medicine and astronomy and astrophysics, it ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, but showed significant improvement compared with the past. The US led in five major scientific fields, namely geosciences, clinical medicine, biological sciences, astronomy and astrophysics, and mathematics. It also ranked second in the remaining six fields, making its overall fundamental research activity strongest globally, but the gap with China has significantly narrowed.
“When considered alongside previous reports, the trend of the US and China advancing side by side is becoming increasingly prominent,” the report said, noting that the United Kingdom and Germany form the second tier of countries in terms of advancements made in major scientific studies.
Pan Jiaofeng, president of the Institutes of Science and Development, said the report raises new questions and challenges for the integrated development of science and technology, the economy, and various other fields.
“A new round of scientific and technological revolution is happening and the frontiers of scientific research are constantly evolving. Cutting-edge topics such as high-throughput single-cell technologies, dark matter detection, and the deep integration of artificial intelligence into scientific research and engineering practices have drawn widespread attention,” he said.
Emmanuel Thiveaud, vice-president of Clarivate, praised China’s progress in cutting-edge scientific research.
“Over the past decades, we have witnessed the tremendous progress China has made and continues to make in research and development,” he said. “It’s not surprising that China is already at the forefront of many research fronts.”
Thiveaud highlighted the increasing influence of Chinese scientific research, citing another report released by Clarivate weeks ago. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
