Fear of Science: China vs USA

Chinese universities ranked 8 out of the 10 top places in the world's technological publications ranking – specified conclusions come from a study prepared by the Dutch Leiden University Center for discipline and Technology Studies CWTS. The ranking was published early this year.

For the purposes of the ranking, publications of scientists from 1411 universities and universities from around the planet from 2018-2021 were analysed. It is about publications in the pages of renowned technological journals as well as on open platforms dedicated to publications of technological works.

Not reported on specified lists of universities with the top technological influence were the centres specified as Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, Harvard, and MIT.

This year's ranking of the top 10 universities with advanced technological influence on the globe, prepared by Leiden University, included 8 universities from China. Only Harvard and the University of Toronto remained in the top ten.

These revolutionary changes in rankings are caused by 2 reasons.

The first is China's fast advancement in discipline and technology, driven by investigation investments over the last 10 years.

Second – Leiden's ranking takes into account a very large number and kind of information sources. specified renowned and recognized rankings specified as Times Higher Education, or Shanghai Consultancy Ranking narrow down to technological publications quoted only from highly selected technological journals specified as “Cell”, “The Lancet”, “Chemical Reviews”, or “Nature”.

New rankings are likely to make even more concern among the largest Western universities, as more and more serious are seen those that base their results on a broad basis of magazines, although of varying quality.

For example, OpenAlex collects data from over 100,000 magazines, and Shanghai's Consultancy Ranking of 9200. The undeniably number of technological articles represented in open databases has a immense impact on China's position in university rankings. Many of the articles in open access journals will not be included in the alleged "quotions" (one of the validity of a given technological work), but they are part of the technological acquis.

Chinese scientists make a immense amount of written work, besides in English. The work to evidence everything, especially the results of technological work, derives from the centuries-old Chinese tradition. To this day, children in schools are doing quite a few written work.

At the same time, attention should be paid to the fact that China has been investing highly consistently in education and expanding its technological and engineering capabilities for years, causing much more people to print technological articles in the Central State.

UNECSO data indicate that by 2023 China had 2.2 million scientists and engineers. Since the 1990s, the Chinese technological evidence has shown very fast growth, surpassing that observed in another countries. Yes, the Chinese started in the '80s. The 20th century almost from scratch, so besides the rate of growth was high. But even according to the Web of discipline – the world's leading investigation and citation platform “China is already ahead of the United States in terms of the full number of technological publications. And that distance seems to be increasing steadily.

Chinese scientists and technological institutions in the PRC attach large importance to publishing technological papers in abroad journals, even those of insignificant importance, reputation.

As a result, non-lease from ranking and adopted methodology, China is at the forefront of the world. Already the numbers of technological publications will origin China to emergence on the ranking lists of universities. This, unfortunately, will proceed to fuel the nervousness among those afraid about China's increasing importance in planet circles of science, technology and innovation. Consequently, the tendency to question the results of specified rankings is likely to increase. China is falling, so it's impossible for discipline to make there...

Author: 梁安基 Andrzej Z. Liang, 上海 Shanghai, 中国 China

Email: [email protected]

Editorial: Leszek B.

Email: [email protected]

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