This news was printed in the issue of Nature, this week.

David Cyranoski
China’s scientific growth is keeping up
with its meteoric economic rise, according
to figures released last week. But the growth
seems to vary widely between fields and the
quality of the work may be lagging in some
of them.
Between 1981 and 2003, China clocked
a 20-fold increase in its publications in
international scientific journals (see graph),
reports Science Watch, a newsletter tracking
trends in scientific activity, published by
Philadelphia-based Thomson ISI.
Although China publishes only half
as many papers as Japan, it is pulling away
from other nations in the region, such as
South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. China
now accounts for over 5% of the world’s
scientific publications.
Papers with authors affiliated to Chinese
institutions now account for 10% of the
literature in materials science, and for 8% of
that in mathematics and physics.
Ron Shen, a materials scientist at the
University of California, Berkeley,who is
originally from Shanghai, says that China has
strong historical foundations in metallurgy.
He says its interest in materials science has
accelerated with access to better equipment.
Shen notes, however, that papers in
many fields, including physics, chemistry
and geosciences, still have low ‘average
impact factors’. The impact factor is a rough
measure of how influential a paper is.
“Chinese researchers are good in analytical
and technical skills,” he says,“but perhaps
weaker on reasoning and interpretation.”
China remains one of the smaller players
in the life sciences,with its share of total
publications ranging from 0.8% in
immunology to 2% in plant science, Science
Watch finds.And Mu-Ming Poo,who heads
the Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai,
says that some of the overall growth in the
nation’s scientific profile can be attributed
to the thousands of papers from labs in the
United States that are co-authored by
visiting Chinese researchers and students
who maintain affiliations in their homeland.
Chinese authors do account for an
increasing number of the world’s most
influential papers, finds Science Watch. But
to get ahead, Shen says, China needs to
assert itself as a leader and not a follower. “It
is still very much influenced by the outside
world,” he says,“so it follows the research
trends of the West very closely.”

--
FROM pursuedream