China’s Nuanced Reshaping of Global Scientific Research

China is not just a contributor to global science but a driver of development – in a form that demands cognition over seclusion. Science, after all, is not a zero-sum game but a networked system of ideas, where growth in one corner can spark momentum across the whole.

Over the last two decades or so, the global storyline in scientific research has been fairly clear: the rise of China is a real threat to Western hegemony. An increase in releases, patents, and state-funded grants were perceived by many in the West as a zero-sum intrusion. However, a new study out of economists Hyejin Ku and Tianrui Mu indicates that this antagonistic narrative may not be true.

Their paper gives a disciplinary, highly demanding analysis of what they term the world science shock during 1995-2020, decentering the notion of scientific capability as a finite pie. Indeed, more innovations have resulted globally, in research universities, because of the emergence of China in many fields rather than the opposite. The impact of the scientific development of China is complicated, unequal, and strongly relates to the characteristics of specific disciplines. It is just this nuance, however, that lends importance to this research.

Reshaping the Marketplace of Ideas

What is not debatable is that there has been unprecedented development in China in recent decades, both in overall scientific productivity and in the proportion of highly cited research compared to the U.S. or Europe. Such success is years of explicit planning in action: intensive investment in top schools, intense poaching schemes such as the Thousand Talents Plan, and a strong supporting infrastructure.

This outcry has caused widespread apprehension that scientific research is getting over-saturated – and that the contributions by Chinese authors would distort and make the work of others less prominent – a ‘congestion effect’. However, that metaphor is not thorough. In many fields, more researchers can generate more ideas and cross-fertilize knowledge across borders – a ‘spillover effect’ that reverses that element of competition in part.

The researchers used a novel shift-share approach to see the impact of exposure to Chinese research on university departments in the United States, European countries, and beyond, not in terms of geography or collaboration per se, but rather in terms of topic overlap. The answers to them are amazing.

In Chemistry, as well as in Engineering & Materials Science (EMS), there is an inverse relationship between the extent of exposure to Chinese research and substantial gains. The volume of high-impact publications increased 27% and 36% respectively, between 1995 and 2020. This is not statistical noise, but actual value, both in more original ideas and, likely, millions of research dollars.

The reverse trend is reflected, however, in Clinical and Life Sciences (CLS). In this case, the impact of exposure to the expanding research presence of China is linked to the reduction of both the growth of impactful outputs by around 8% and novelty. The congestion effect prevails in these areas. In other fields, the impacts were mixed or weakened so that, neither spillover nor rivalry leapfrogs the other across the board.

How Ideas Travel

The advantages measured in Chemistry or EMS may be suspected as merely an effect of more collaboration, more co-authorship and more collaborative grants. But that is the hypothesis that was tested by the study, too. Even when the researchers removed the papers having Chinese co-authors or Chinese funding, the positive effects did not disappear, instead became even stronger in disciplines such as Physics.

What this implies is noteworthy: benefits do not lie solely in partnership but rather, on influence. Even without formal collaboration, Chinese research is reforming the intellectual trend of world science. Departments whose outputs are more exposed to the rise of China cite more Chinese papers even when they have not collaborated on a China-based research with Chinese scholars.

But why is it that some disciplines are enjoying the benefits whereas some are not?

• Growth potential: Areas where it is possible to conduct exploration in terms of empiricism or experiment, such as Chemistry and EMS, are unlikely to be congested. So there is more intellectual ground, which can be filled, and more researchers can participate without stepping upon the others.
  
  
• Spillover conduciveness: Knowledge diffusion occurs more readily in fields where research conducted by the Chinese is of a high quality (measured in the number of highly cited papers) and those fields in which the global hierarchies are less strict. Both chemistry and EMS fit the description.

CLS, however, faces different challenges. To begin with, Chinese research quality is comparatively lower in this field. Second, the discipline is more vertical and less integrated, which means the flow of ideas is slowed down, and the market can be easily conquered by competitors.

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The most significant contribution made by the study is that it breaks the notion of global research being a zero-sum game. What this means to universities and policymakers is obvious: instead of being guided by fear or mistrust, institutions need to develop field-specific strategies that can prove to be beneficial for all, concentrating against spillover benefits and guarding against congestion. Above all, it should be to promote an environment that absorbs, and not resists, new knowledge.

Read: “China shock in science: The impact of China’s rise on global scientific research” (Hyejin Ku, Tianrui Mu). Research Forum Berlin. Available here.