China to lead world scientific research by 2020

Vast state investment in schools, universities and research programmes has driven the rapid growth, with academic discoveries rapidly tapped for commercial potential. Chinese scientists are particularly strong on chemistry and materials engineering, both considered central to the country’s industrial development and economic future.

The number of peer-reviewed papers published by Chinese researchers rose 64-fold over the past 30 years.

China is now second only to the US in terms of academic papers published, and will take first place by 2020 if current trends continue.

It comes after last week’s announcement that China is poised to replace Japan as the world’s second largest economy, behind the US.

The boom in China’s scientific research was disclosed in an analysis of papers published in 10,500 academic journals across the world.

The figures, compiled by the publisher Thomson Reuters for the Financial Times , showed that Chinese scientists had increased their output at a far faster rate than counterparts in rival “emerging” nations such as India, Russia and Brazil. Although India has long been tipped as the most likely threat to US academic supremacy, the study found it now lags well behind China.

India has almost been caught by Brazil in terms of the number of papers published, with researchers in the South American country leading the way in agriculture and biology. Russia has seen a relative decline in scientific research since 1981.

“China is out on its own, far ahead of the pack,” said James Wilsdon, of the Royal Society in London. Jonathan Adams, a research evaluation director at Thomson Reuters, called China’s growth “awe-inspiring” although he acknowledged that the value of the findings by its scientists were still “rather mixed”.