China Surpassed The US With The Most Research Papers Published In The World, India Ranked 12th

China has always been a contender in a lot of industries from electrical vehicles to cryptocurrency and robotics. Whatever field you can think of, China definitely has a respectable position in the world.

And now, the country has surpassed the US to become the country with the most scientific research papers in natural sciences. The data comes from Nikkei Asian Review, which revealed that Germany is in third place and Japan in fourth place.

It’s clearly shown in the data that China is the leading nation in scientific investigation with 19.9 percent of the total scientific papers published while the US makes up 18.3 percent of the total papers. According to Nikkei Asian Review’s report, this data takes into account the peer-reviewed papers that were published in scientific journals.

In the 2016-2018 period, China published 305,927 papers while the US published 281,487 papers. And Germany published 67,041 papers, standing in third place. So, china has published 18 times as many papers as the 1996-1998 period and 3.6 times as many papers as the 2006-2008 period.

In addition, the US is still at the top position regarding the number of papers cited, but China is catching up fast. In the 10 percent most-cited research papers in 2017, the US accounted for 24.7 percent and China occupied 22 percent, as pointed out by Nikkei. When it comes to the 1% most-cited research papers, the US accounts for 29.3 percent while China accounts for 21 percent.

It’s worth noting that the two countries’ papers focus on different matters. China pays more attention to material science, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science. On the other hand, the US focuses more on basic life sciences and clinical medicine.

Where does India stand?

India is also one of the countries with the most research papers in the world, which isn’t a surprise considering how the country invests in science and technology. There are a lot of institutes in India teaching about these fields such as the IITs across the country.

According to Nature Index, as of 2019, Indian ranked 12th in the world regarding the scientific research output. It had 4.7 percent of the total research papers in the world.

Additionally, the country also has three institutions in the top 100 rising academic institutions in the world, including IIT Guwahati at the 100th place, IIT Madras at the 77th place, and IISER Kolkata at the 57th place.

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