Scientific Output From China Exceeds The US’ For The First Time

China publishes more scientific papers than the US on an annual basis, according to a report by the US National Science Foundation.

AsianScientist (Jan. 26, 2018) – According to the US National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Science and Engineering Indicators 2018 report, China now publishes more scientific studies than the US every year.

Published every two years, the Science and Engineering Indicators 2018 report covers data on the science and engineering landscape in the US and around the world. It showed that although the US continues to lead the world in R&D expenditures at US$496 billion (26 percent share of the global total), China was a decisive second at 21 percent (US$408 billion).

The report also found that, for the first time, China has surpassed the US in terms of the number of scientific studies published, an important benchmark of scientific output. Based on Elsevier’s Scopus database—which accounts for about 18.6 percent of the international total—China published over 426,000 studies compared to 409,000 published by authors in the US.

In the realm of higher education, the US remains the top awarder of science and engineering doctoral degrees, giving out an estimated 40,000 every year. However, China is not far behind, graduating 34,000 science and engineering PhD holders each year, ahead of Russia (19,000), Germany (15,000), the UK (14,000) and India (13,000).

In contrast, the US lags in bachelor’s level degrees. India earned 25 percent of the more than 7.5 million awarded science and engineering bachelor’s level degrees in 2014, followed closely by China (22 percent), the EU (12 percent) and the US (10 percent).

Notably, nearly half of all degrees awarded in China are in science and engineering fields, and the number of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded in China has gone up by 300 percent since 2000.


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Source: National Science Foundation, US; Photo: Shutterstock.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.

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