China has experienced the strongest growth in scientific research over the past three decades of any country, according to figures compiled for the Financial Times, and the pace shows no sign of slowing.
Jonathan Adams, research evaluation director at Thomson Reuters, said China's “awe- inspiring” growth meant it was now the second-largest producer of scientific knowledge – and is on course to overtake the US by 2020 if it continues on its present trajectory.
Thomson Reuters, which indexes scientific papers from 10,500 journals worldwide, analysed the performance of four emerging markets countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – over the past 30 years.