China Retains its Lead Globally in terms of Quality and Quantity of Scientific Papers, says Japan's Education Ministry

In line with a report from Japan's education ministry, China has maintained its global lead in three measures of the quantity and quality of scientific research papers, demonstrating the country's increasingly independent research system that does not rely on the West. The annual report, which is based on data from the British firm Clarivate, is centred on 2020 figures, with the three-year average continuing through 2021. China produced 24.6% of all papers published globally, 8.5 percentage points more than the United States, and nearly 30% of the top 10% and 1% most cited publications.

In all three categories, the country increased its lead over the US. Since 2017, China has ranked first in the share of published papers, first in the top 10% most-cited papers since 2018, and first in the top 1% since 2019. Although China led for the second year in a row, some observers argue that the country's rise is due in part to domestic researchers citing each other's work.

This year's counted the number of citations received by institutions in the same country versus those from other countries for the first time. It discovered that 29% of citations to American papers were by American researchers, while the share of citations by domestic peers was less than 20% in Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. China was significantly higher, at 61%, up from 48% a decade ago.