China's chemical industry leads the world in scientific research output

The 2021 China Nature Index, a supplement of Nature published on May 26, shows that China has the highest contribution share in the field of chemistry in the world, second only to the United States in the other three disciplines of the Nature Index. In 2020, China's contribution share will be more concentrated in the field of chemistry, while the United States will be more concentrated in life sciences.

Nature Index is an indicator showing the scientific research performance of an institution. The number of papers (Count) and the contribution share (Share) are two indicators used for natural index ranking, based on the output of papers in 82 natural science journals by an institution or country/region.

Data from the Nature Index from 2015 to 2020 show how China has narrowed the gap with the United States in terms of high-quality research output. In 2015, China’s contribution share (Share, a key indicator of the natural index) was 37% of that of the United States; by 2020, it had increased to 69%. Among all the four disciplines tracked by the Nature Index, China's contribution in the field of chemistry in 2018 has surpassed that of the United States, and it is close to the United States in the two fields of earth and environmental sciences and physics, excluding life sciences.

According to the contribution share, the supplement also shows the ten regions with the highest scientific research output in China in 2020, as well as the research institutions with the strongest performance in each region. The ten regions are Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Hubei, Zhejiang, Anhui, Shandong, Tianjin and Hong Kong. Obviously, China's high-yield research institutions are mainly concentrated in the eastern region.

Based on the contribution share of articles in 2020, the supplement lists China’s top 50 research institutions. The top ten are: Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Peking University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Fudan University and Sun Yat-sen University.

The supplement shows that the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan are China’s five major scientific research partners in the Nature Index. However, Sino-US scientific research cooperation will drop to zero growth in 2020, and the average annual growth rate from 2015 to 2019 will be more than 10%. However, the cooperation between China and the other four scientific research partners is still growing rapidly.

In addition, the supplement also cited an analysis of 500,000 scholars from the top 100 research institutions on the Nature Index. The analysis showed that China has achieved a net inflow of scientific talents since 2014, reversing the trend of the past 40 years. As of March 2021, more than 10% of scholars in Chinese universities have come from abroad in the past three years, which is nearly three times the global average (3.7%).