The number of high impact scientists in China has increased for a fifth consecutive year while the United States, although still leading, has experienced a persistent decline, according to the latest global citation list which evaluates scientists’ academic impact. The list, released by international information service provider Clarivate Analytics on November 15, identifies scientists who have had significant influence through the publication of highly cited papers during the last decade. This year, about 7,000 designations were awarded to scientists in 21 areas. The list assesses the research strength of each country and reflects changes in world scientific research patterns. The U.S. still leads as the institutional home of 38.3% of nominated scientists, but that number declines year by year. There was a 1.4-percentage point loss this year, and a five-point drop since 2018.
China has shown a promising trend in recent years. The percentage has risen from 7.9% in 2018 to 16.2% in 2022, more than doubling China’s share of the number of “highly cited researchers” over five years. In the institutional rankings, Harvard University retained the No 1 spot it has held in past years with 233 researchers nominated. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) ranked second with 228 researchers nominated. “If our editors show up on the list, it indicates that their papers published in the last 10 years have been ranked among the top by the number of citations,” Xue Wangxin, Senior Editor at Tsinghua University Press, said.
Chinese researchers occupy more than 40% of spots on the list in the fields of mathematics, chemistry and material science. But China is lagging behind in medical fields such as clinical medicine and immunology. “The United States, Europe and Japan have absolute advantages on the list in the biomedical field. China is far below the global average on research investment in the biomedical industry,” Zhang Mizhi from the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science, wrote in the journal Scientific Development in October. “China should increase investment in biomedicine and attract more capital investment from the global market to promote the research and breakthrough of key technologies in medical science, pharmaceuticals and organic fine chemistry”, he added.
“Research fuels the race for knowledge. While the United States continues to lead the world in research influence, China continues to close the gap,” said David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate in an official report on November 15, the South China Morning Post reports.
