Country's share of world's basic research publications soars to 32.6% in 2024

China's share of global fundamental research publications has jumped from just 0.9 percent in 1985 to 32.6 percent in 2024, according to the China Fundamental Research Report (2026), which was released in Beijing on Tuesday.

The report, coordinated by the NSFC-Wuhan University Observatory for Global Fundamental Research with support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, examined long-term shifts in 25 countries and regions, drawing on over 20 data sources.

The data indicated that global knowledge production is growing geographically diverse, rather than one scientific center displacing another.

Contributions from the United States dropped from 39.9 percent to 18.9 percent from 1985 to 2024, while that of the European Union dropped from 25.8 percent to 22.3 percent during the same period, and India's share grew from 2.8 percent to 7.3 percent, it said.

In 2024, China accounted for 20.8 percent of citations received worldwide, including domestic citations, compared with 24.4 percent for the US. When domestic citations were excluded, China's share of cross-country citations received was 9.5 percent, compared with 24.9 percent for the US.

China's spending on fundamental research nearly doubled, from $16.5 billion in 2018 to $31.9 billion in 2023. The country's full-time equivalent research workforce surged 148 percent, from 1.21 million in 2010 to 3 million in 2023.

China's high-level scientist community carries a comparatively younger academic age profile, compared with research talent pools in Japan, the US and the EU, the report said.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China has scaled up support for early-career researchers. The proportion of researchers with at least one NSFC-funded early high-impact publication has jumped from roughly 50 percent for the 2000 academic career cohort to nearly 80 percent for the 2019 cohort. Heavy investment in young talent forms a key driver sustaining China's long-term basic research momentum, it added.

Robbert Dijkgraaf, president-elect of the International Science Council, said that with one-third of fundamental research coming from China, investment expanding dramatically and a new generation of scientists emerging, China has become an important and increasingly important contributor to world scientific knowledge.

Dijkgraaf said the greatest discoveries of fundamental research are often unexpected, their benefits may take decades to emerge and their impact rarely stops at national borders.

"Knowledge is the only resource that grows when it's shared," he said.

No country can predict where the next breakthrough will come from, and no country can capture all the benefits of discovery, said Dijkgraaf, adding: "International cooperation is therefore not simply an expression of goodwill, it's our shared self-interest."

Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature, said that her quarter-century as an editor had allowed her to witness firsthand the trends identified in the report: China's growing contribution to research output, the research community and global knowledge, as well as the broadening and diversification of where knowledge is generated.

She noted that in many parts of the world, emphasis is shifting away from fundamental science toward applied science, with a sharper focus on short-term returns on investment.

"Applied science is absolutely crucial, but fundamental science really lies at the heart of scientific inquiry," she said.

Zhang Pingwen, president of Wuhan University, said that two principles had guided the report's preparation: moving beyond simple rankings to develop a deeper understanding of research systems, and ensuring that the data, methods and limitations were transparent so that the findings can be scrutinized and others can build on the work.

Countries differ in their research histories, institutions and development paths, and their scientific contributions take many forms, Zhang said.