18 February 2011 - 23H20
China aims to be top at science: US experts
This picture taken in 2009 shows a masked worker in a lab coat sorting silicon wafers at the manufacturing centre of solar cell maker Trina Solar in Changzhou. China has its eye on becoming the top science nation in the world, a position held for decades by the United States and European nations, researchers at a US science conference said Friday.
AFP - China has its eye on becoming the top science nation in the world, a position held for decades by the United States and European nations, researchers at a US science conference said Friday.
After being the world's main source of cheap manufactured goods, "China hopes to become one of the leading sources of intellectual property in coming years," said Denis Simon, a professor at Penn State University who is also the science and technology adviser to the mayor of the Chinese city of Dalian.
At a time when the United States and Europe are hamstrung by shrinking budgets for science, China has increased spending on science and technology "significantly," Simon said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
"The Chinese have indicated that by 2020 they hope to spend around 2.5 percent of GDP on research and development," said Simon.
In the United States, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are talking about trimming a billion dollars from the National Institutes of Health, the world's largest public research institute, and slashing funds for other science and research agencies, in a bid to narrow the trillion-dollar US trade deficit.
In a sign that China is on its way to the top, the number of quality scientific papers coming out of the country -- measured by how often they are cited in other studies -- is growing by leaps and bounds, said Penn State University professor Caroline Wagner.
How often a peer-reviewed scientific report is cited by another scientist is considered a key measure of quality, Wagner said.
The number of Chinese papers being cited is up, while the number of citations of US or European reports is declining.
In sheer volume of work, China already produces more research papers in the fields of natural science and engineering than the United States, which is overall the biggest producer of scientific reports in the world, said Wagner.
"But based on current trends, China will publish more papers in all fields by 2015," Wagner said.
With more Chinese enrolling in universities, there will "also be more researchers in China than there are in the US," which will also drive up Chinese scientific output and the quality of the reports, Wagner said.
Before it achieves that goal, China will have to overcome several problems including a brain drain.
France24 - China aims to be top at science: US experts
China aims to be top at science: US experts
This picture taken in 2009 shows a masked worker in a lab coat sorting silicon wafers at the manufacturing centre of solar cell maker Trina Solar in Changzhou. China has its eye on becoming the top science nation in the world, a position held for decades by the United States and European nations, researchers at a US science conference said Friday.
AFP - China has its eye on becoming the top science nation in the world, a position held for decades by the United States and European nations, researchers at a US science conference said Friday.
After being the world's main source of cheap manufactured goods, "China hopes to become one of the leading sources of intellectual property in coming years," said Denis Simon, a professor at Penn State University who is also the science and technology adviser to the mayor of the Chinese city of Dalian.
At a time when the United States and Europe are hamstrung by shrinking budgets for science, China has increased spending on science and technology "significantly," Simon said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
"The Chinese have indicated that by 2020 they hope to spend around 2.5 percent of GDP on research and development," said Simon.
In the United States, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are talking about trimming a billion dollars from the National Institutes of Health, the world's largest public research institute, and slashing funds for other science and research agencies, in a bid to narrow the trillion-dollar US trade deficit.
In a sign that China is on its way to the top, the number of quality scientific papers coming out of the country -- measured by how often they are cited in other studies -- is growing by leaps and bounds, said Penn State University professor Caroline Wagner.
How often a peer-reviewed scientific report is cited by another scientist is considered a key measure of quality, Wagner said.
The number of Chinese papers being cited is up, while the number of citations of US or European reports is declining.
In sheer volume of work, China already produces more research papers in the fields of natural science and engineering than the United States, which is overall the biggest producer of scientific reports in the world, said Wagner.
"But based on current trends, China will publish more papers in all fields by 2015," Wagner said.
With more Chinese enrolling in universities, there will "also be more researchers in China than there are in the US," which will also drive up Chinese scientific output and the quality of the reports, Wagner said.
Before it achieves that goal, China will have to overcome several problems including a brain drain.
France24 - China aims to be top at science: US experts
