How China has ‘played long game’ to become global research leader

China’s transformation into a research powerhouse has been built on sustained investment, institutional continuity and considerable backing for young researchers, according to the findings of a “forensic” analysis that lifts the lid on how the country’s innovation system now works.

The landmark study, published on 19 October, charts the rise of “fundamental” Chinese research over the past four decades in comparison with other systems around the world.

It shows business backing for research is steadily increasing in the Communist state but international collaborations are faltering amid rising geopolitical tensions and growing concerns over national security.

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and an international team, the China Fundamental Research Report (2026) was authored by scholars across nine Chinese universities.

It bills itself as countering Western narratives about China’s rise – often couched in terms of competition and threat – and aims to contribute to the global debate about how best to invest in fundamental research and gain economic and societal benefits from new discoveries.

It shows how China has increased its share of global research publications and almost doubled its research expenditure in five years, while prioritising investment in early career researchers.

Among other findings: 

• In 2010, China and the US had broadly comparable numbers of researchers, at 1.21 million and 1.13 million, respectively. By 2023, China’s researcher population had increased to 3 million but the US had only reached 1.68 million in 2022
• China’s output of highly cited publications has grown steadily since 2000, reaching 902 publications in 2024 and a global share of 44 per cent, slightly above that of the US
• China’s research spend as a proportion of GDP has shown a sustained increase in recent years, with funding rising from about 0.05 per cent in 2000 to around 0.17 per cent in 2023.

Researchers examined the long-term trends in fundamental research support across 25 countries and regions between 1985 and 2024.

Fundamental research is defined in the study as research focusing on “strategic, foundational, and forward-looking scientific questions” with an aim to provide “foundational knowledge and capabilities for breakthroughs in key areas”.

Out of the 25 research systems, the US remains the largest spender but China’s fundamental research expenditure nearly doubled from £12.37 billion in 2018 to £23.9 billion in 2023, surpassing that of France and Japan. 

This is still only equivalent to around 23 per cent of the US level of expenditure in 2023; however the authors argue that such a shift reflects China’s long-term outlook.

Lin Zhang, the report’s lead researcher and professor at the School of Information Management at Wuhan University, said that China’s sustained growth in fundamental research investment reflects “considerable continuity in its support for fundamental research”. 

Enhanced support for early career researchers also stood out as a unique characteristic of China’s research system. Four in 10 awards from China’s NSFC were made to men and women under the ages of 35 and 40 respectively as part of its Young Scientists Fund.

Overall, the report found that the global research landscape is becoming increasingly diverse, with more countries developing significant research capabilities. China, Brazil, India, Singapore and South Korea are identified as major knowledge production hubs alongside the US and Europe.

However, international cooperation and collaboration rates in countries like China, India and South Korea were generally lower than in European countries like France and Belgium.

International collaboration has taken a different guise in China, where total publication output has outpaced international co-publications.

China’s international collaboration rate declined from 34.85 per cent in 1985 to 20.06 per cent in 2024 but its global share of internationally co-authored publications has increased over four decades. China produced 130,260 internationally co-authored fundamental research publications in 2024.

The report measured countries’ contributions to the global research community across several metrics, including citations, influential publications and publication volume. On the last measure, China’s proportion of global research publications rose from 0.9 per cent in 1985 to 32.6 per cent in 2024 while the US share nosedived from 39.9 per cent to 18.9 per cent over the same period.

While the growth in Chinese research expenditure has expanded its scientific output, it does not necessarily translate into new research outcomes. 

Zhang told Times Higher Education: “We should be cautious about drawing a direct causal relationship between increased funding and original scientific discoveries.”

The scholar-led initiative brought together open research information and national and international data, which includes statistics from the OECD, China’s National Bureau of Statistics and information provided by the NSFC. 

James Wilsdon, executive director of the Research on Research Institute at UCL and co-chair of the International Review Committee for the report, described the new study as “a breath of fresh air...led by a new generation of Chinese scholars, built on open data and methods, and candid about gaps as well as gains”.

“It arrives as the frontiers of science are shifting – and as support for basic research and international cooperation is faltering in places that once led the way.” 

rosalind.skillen@timeshighereducation.com