The number of research papers published by Chinese scientists has increased dramatically since the mid-1990s. In 2008, the country’s researchers published 112,000 papers, making it the nation with the second-highest number of scientific publications, behind the US. Analyzed according to Thomson Reuters’ “Essential Science Indicators,” the top-three fields for Chinese publications were materials science, chemistry and physics. Chinese researchers represented 21%, 17% and 14% of papers published in these respective fields between 2004 and 2008. The country’s publications in the fields of agricultural sciences, immunology and microbiology grew the fastest over the same period. Out of 10 specialty areas from the Web of Science database, the categories with the three-highest percentages of the country’s publications from 2004 to 2008 were crystallography (32% of the world’s publications), metallurgy and metallurgical engineering (31%), and multidisciplinary physics (22%). When coauthoring publications, Chinese researchers most often collaborated with US researchers, followed by Japanese and German researchers. The organizations with the greatest number of collaborations were the National University of Singapore, the University of Texas and the University of Tokyo.

Source: Thomson Reuters