Science and Technology in The People's Republic of China - Academic Publishing

Academic Publishing

The Royal Society in a 2011 report on academic publishing stated that in share of English scientific research papers the United States was first followed by China, the UK, Germany, Japan, France, and Canada. The report predicted that China would overtake the United States some time before 2020, possibly as early as 2013. China's scientific impact, as measured by other scientists citing the published papers the next year, is smaller although also increasing. An analysis of ISI Web of Knowledge data found that China had increased its share of the 1% of most highly cited science articles from 1.85% in 2001 to 11.3% in 2011. By 2014 China could surpass Germany and the UK and be ranked second after the United States. The share of the United States declined from 64.3% to 50.7% during the same ten year period.

A 2009 study of Chinese social science studies in the Social Sciences Citation Index found a slow increase until 1999. The 1999-2007 period saw a very rapid increase. However, in 2007 China still only contributed 1.39% of the studies and mainland China only surpassed Hong Kong in 2006. Economics & business had larger share than social, political & communication science and psychology. The low share of social sciences compared to natural sciences may reflect that this is a common pattern in Asian nations, that Chinese social scientists publish in national journals not included in the Index and have less career incitements regarding publishing in international journals, and that state ideology and control is more important for social sciences than natural sciences. In China natural sciences are administered by the Ministry of Science and Technology while social sciences are administered by the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences which may hinder inter-disciplinary collaboration.

Articles published in China related to basic medial science and clinical research and indexed by PubMed increased on average by 31.2% and 22% each year between 2000 and 2009. Randomized clinical trial were about 1/3 of clinical research articles. However, in 2009 this still represented only 1.5% of worldwide clinical research articles and 1.7% of worldwide randomized clinical trials. Clinical research education for medical students and the involvement and the supporting environment for medical doctors regarding clinical research have shortcomings.

Science-Metrix, a Canadian data-analysis company, predicted that in 2010 China would publish as many natural sciences and engineering peer-reviewed papers as the United States. In 2015 China is predicted to publish as many papers as the US across all fields. In 2030 China is predicted to surpass the US in life and social sciences.

There are 8,000 journals and 4,600 in scientific fields. Almost all Chinese science organisations publish their own journal. The government owns or supports most journals with only a small number being privately owned. The "publish or perish" system has been argued to contribute to many low quality journals and articles that are infrequently cited and also to plagiarism and fraud. The Chinese government has put into place stricter regulations, punished or terminated some journals, and aims increase quality control and peer evaluation of journals as well as to create five to ten large publishing groups. As part of the reforms, in 2012 the China Association for Science and Technology, which oversees 1,050 journals, in a declaration listed various forms of misconduct, plagiarism, and fraud and as well as the penalties for perpetrating them such written warnings, blacklisting, contacting the researcher's home institution or funding agencies, or public disclosure. It has also been seen as important by increasing pressure on other journals and by informing editors who may not know that some actions such as favoring researchers based on personal relations are unacceptable. China also plans to give substantial financial incentives to top journals based on factors such as their Chinese and international impact factor. It has been questioned if this will have an effect on the many poor quality journals who in return for money help researchers fill their institutional requirements for published papers.