Researchers from Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyze the simulation data of space environment in laboratory. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By Staff Reporters

The Nature Index Annual Tables 2022, released on June 16, examined the high-quality scientific research output of different countries and scientific research institutions in the field of natural sciences. It is a ranking of institutions and countries based on publications in a group of highly selective science journals.

Four of the top ten leading institutions come from China, and of those ten, only the Chinese institutions have shown an increase in adjusted Share (the metric used to order Nature Index listings) from 2020-2021, according to the annual tables.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences leads the institutional tables for the tenth consecutive year since the Index was established, with a share of

1,963.00 in 2021. This is more than double that of Harvard University, in second place, with a share of 910.93.

In the 50 fastest rising institutes, the top 31 are from China, compared with 2021 only two of the top 10 were Chinese institutions. This year just 10 of the 50 come from outside China.

According to Nature Briefing, the latest results could be a sign that the Chinese government's long-term investments in science are beginning to bear fruit, and the country's strong scientific performance is likely to be sustained in the coming years.

Cao Cong, a science-policy researcher at the University of Nottingham Ningbo in China, said the growing investment in research and development, which accounted for 2.4 percent of the country's GDP in 2021, continues to be a factor in China's progress.

"The Nature Index Annual Tables show that China's investment in research through their large and now well-established institutions is resulting in sustained research output in the natural sciences. This year, their funding impact on their research growth stands out more when compared to the changes we have seen in other countries, particularly Germany, UK, France and Japan," said David Swinbanks, founder of the Nature Index.

Chinese contributions to world science journals improved greatly, said Niels Peter Thomas, China president of publishing house Springer Nature, at last year's Zhongguancun Forum, noting that it was really impressive how much Chinese research has accelerated on the world stage.

"Taking the Nature journal alone as an example, we can see that from 1997 to 2020, the number of articles that were connected with Chinese authorship or Chinese authors coming from research and institutions in China surged from 0.5 percent to 18 percent," said Thomas.

Apart from the investment in R&D, how did China achieve such a dramatic rise in quality science output in recent years? Hans Proebsting, a former road and traffic engineer gave the answer "diligence" in Quora, an online question-and-answer platform, adding that people would understand what he means after spending some time in college/university and working alongside a Chinese student.