China becomes world leader in scientific research
China has displaced the US as the world's top research publisher in science and engineering
The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has released data that says more than 2.5 million science and engineering (S&E) articles were published around the world in 2018.
This is a considerable increase compared to the 1.7 million publishing recorded a decade ago, reports the Geneva-based NGO World Economic Forum.
Since then, the sector has experienced around four percent annual growth in the global research output sector over the past 10 years.
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What is most notable is the fact that China's growth rate now is twice the world average. With this, the 2008 leaders US has been displaced as the world's top S&E research publisher by China.
In the same year, the US published over 3.9 lakh S&E articles in peer-reviewed journals, ahead of China's 2.4 lakh. However, China could publish 5.2 lakh articles last year, ahead of US output totalling 4.2 lakh.
India ranked third in 2018 with over 1.3 lakh S&E publishing. The European Union's collective output was over 6.2 lakh research articles, meaning it accounted for almost a quarter of the global total. China made up 20.67 percent while the US accounted for 16.54 percent.
