China has surpassed the US to become the global leader in both scientific research output and "high impact" studies, according to a report published by Japan's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTP).
China now publishes a yearly average of 407,181 scientific papers, accounting for 23.4% of the annual number of scientific research papers based on yearly averages between 2018 and 2020, compared to 293,434 journal articles by the US, said the report, published on Tuesday (August 9).
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The figures were drawn from data compiled by Clarivate, an analytics firm, reports The Guardian.
The NISTP report also found that 27.2% of the world's top 1% most frequently cited research papers are from China, followed by US with 24.9% and UK with 5.5%.
The number of citations a research paper receives is a commonly used metric in academia known as "citation impact".
A high proportion of Chinese research papers accounted for materials science, chemistry, engineering and mathematics, The Guardian report read.
US researches were mostly in clinical medicine, basic life sciences and physics.
China overtook the US in 2019 in the top 1% measure of the "citation impact" finding, after it surpassed the European Union in 2015.
Dr Caroline Wagner, a co-author of the study, told The Guardian that research papers that receive more citations than 99% of research are "works that are seen as being in the class of Nobel prize winners, the very leading edge of science".
"The US has tended to rank China's work as lower quality. This appears to have changed," she added.
The US, however, still relies more on research and development in the corporate sector and universities compared to other countries, the report also revealed.
"China has the largest number of researchers in the corporate and university sectors among major countries. In the corporate sector, the United States and China are on par with each other, and both are showing rapid growth," it read.
"China is one of the top countries in the world in terms of both the quantity and quality of scientific papers," Shinichi Kuroki of the Japan Science and Technology Agency told Nikkei Asia.
"In order to become the true global leader, it will need to continue producing internationally recognised research," he added.