China led the world in seven out of 11 research areas this year in terms of active frontier research, surpassing the United States for the first time, according to the 2021 Research Fronts report, jointly published by the Institutes of Science and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and global analytics firm Clarivate. It identified 171 frontier research topics, including 110 “hot” and 61 emerging research fronts, which are divided into 11 broad research categories, from physics to clinical medicine. China achieved the highest scores in seven categories of the Research Leadership Index this year: agricultural, plant and animal sciences; ecological and environmental sciences; clinical medicine; chemistry and materials science; mathematics; information science; and economics, psychology and other social sciences. China ranked second in geosciences, biological sciences and physics, and eighth in astronomy and astrophysics, according to the annual report.
The United States scored highest in four major areas: geosciences; biological sciences; physics; and astronomy and astrophysics. It ranked second in the other seven categories. When ranking an individual country’s overall performance across all 11 areas, the United States remains the world’s most active researcher, scoring a total of 209.23 points. China was second with 191.43 points, up from 151.29 points last year. The gap in the Research Leadership Index scores between the two nations is less than 10%. China is only slightly more active than the U.S. in frontier research in clinical medicine, social sciences and information science this year, while the U.S. enjoys a substantial lead in geosciences and biological sciences, as well as astronomy and astrophysics, the report said.
Yang Fan, Researcher at the Institutes of Science and Development of the CAS, said a major reason for China’s higher rankings is due a great deal to Chinese scientists publishing a large number of highly influential papers on Covid-19. Gao Hongjun, CAS Vice President, said the 8th annual report can help scientists and policymakers determine key research topics and trends by tracking emerging specialty areas of research. Of the 171 research fronts, 81 are led by the U.S., while China leads global research in 65 fronts. The two countries combined account for 85% of all the listed specialist research areas, the China Daily reports.
