Scienctific Research: China on course to overtake US by 2020?
silktown
January 26, 2010, 11:40 AM posted in General Discussion"Jonathan Adams, research evaluation director at Thomson Reuters, said China’s “awe-inspiring” growth had put it in second place to the US – and if it continues on its trajectory it will be the largest producer of scientific knowledge by 2020...."
"...According to James Wilsdon, science policy director at the Royal Society in London, three main factors are driving Chinese research. First is the government’s enormous investment, with funding increases far above the rate of inflation, at all levels of the system from schools to postgraduate research.
Second is the organised flow of knowledge from basic science to commercial applications. Third is the efficient and flexible way in which China is tapping the expertise of its extensive scientific diaspora in north America and Europe, tempting back mid-career scientists with deals that allow them to spend part of the year working in the west and part in China."
From an article in the Financial Times (25JAN2010): "China scientists lead world in research growth".
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ef3097e-09da-11df-8b23-00144feabdc0.html
(You might need to register to read this, but there's no charge for 10 articles a month, I think.)
xiaophil
I haven't read the article, so perhaps I should wait to comment, but Chinese research is crap. A quarter of it is forged; a quarter of it is just made up. The rest of the %50, well maybe that is forged or made up too. I mean, I couldn't give an actual statistic, but I have worked at an engineering university in China and have heard enough stories from students and faculty to feel comfortable saying this.
That said, nobody should underestimate the Chinese. They are changing fast.
pretzellogic
crap or not, I would agree that eventually, the quality of Chinese research will improve. But the number of research papers is just one of many metrics that could be used to determine if a country is moving up the tech ladder. It will be interesting to see that even with a China with a GDP larger than the US's (maybe by 2020, maybe sooner) that with 4 x the US s population, China will need 4x the US GDP to give its citizens the same living standard as as American.
It would be interesting to see which countries are taking the lead in software, hardware and technology related patents worldwide, and where China falls in that category.
simonpettersson
There's a general sentiment of the search for truth amongst Western scientists. They take pride in looking for truth and not money or fame. This is partly the heritage of the Enlightenment and partly, perhaps, the tensions with religious institutions promoting creationism.
China never had an Enlightenment and has no such pressure. In China, it seems to me, the national obsession with wealth and success might foster an environment in which researchers are encouraged to produce fast and spectacular results, not truth.
I've read a little bit of Chinese research (not much, so don't take this too seriously) and the contrast with Western research seems striking. A Western research paper with a spectacular new discovery is generally very carefully worded and hesitant to draw conclusions (\"It's too early to say, but based on the thousands of independent data points there might in the future be grounds to claim that ...\" whereas a Chinese research paper reads more like an ad for a weight-loss pill (\"Thus, we have conclusively proven that Qi can turn lead into gold\").
jckeith
January 26, 2010, 04:53 PMAll anyone needs to do to verify the veracity of this article is take a look at the composition of PhD candidates in the U.S. The vast majority are from foreign countries, particularly China and India. If their respective governments continue down the path of economic liberalization while ours continues down the path of central planning, those students will increasingly seek employment opportunities back home, or not even bother coming here in the first place.
Also, in China you have a culture which prizes education and hard work. In America, you have a culture which views college as a right. Consequently, China now graduates more engineers than they can even find jobs for and the U.S. has a huge shortage of engineers (but we have plenty of liberal arts majors).
xiaophil
Somehow this situation always reminds me of the Romans hiring Barbarians to secure their borders against other barbarians because they couldn't find enough decent Roman troops to do the job. Well, that didn't turn out so hot for the empire.
foodlegs1
January 26, 2010, 05:11 PMwith the downfall of chinese communism will come fun times for all
xiaophil
January 26, 2010, 05:26 PMI haven't read the article, so perhaps I should wait to comment, but Chinese research is crap. A quarter of it is forged; a quarter of it is just made up. The rest of the %50, well maybe that is forged or made up too. I mean, I couldn't give an actual statistic, but I have worked at an engineering university in China and have heard enough stories from students and faculty to feel comfortable saying this.
That said, nobody should underestimate the Chinese. They are changing fast.
xiaophil
January 26, 2010, 05:34 PMSomehow this situation always reminds me of the Romans hiring Barbarians to secure their borders against other barbarians because they couldn't find enough decent Roman troops to do the job. Well, that didn't turn out so hot for the empire.
jckeith
January 26, 2010, 05:37 PMI forgot to mention that in addition to crippling the economy, the U.S. government makes it almost impossible for skilled workers to immigrate here, and protectionist sentiment is actually gaining in popularity.
pretzellogic
January 26, 2010, 06:13 PMcrap or not, I would agree that eventually, the quality of Chinese research will improve. But the number of research papers is just one of many metrics that could be used to determine if a country is moving up the tech ladder. It will be interesting to see that even with a China with a GDP larger than the US's (maybe by 2020, maybe sooner) that with 4 x the US s population, China will need 4x the US GDP to give its citizens the same living standard as as American.
It would be interesting to see which countries are taking the lead in software, hardware and technology related patents worldwide, and where China falls in that category.
henning
January 26, 2010, 06:30 PMDisclaimer: The following assumptions are based on Information Systems research only - certainly not material science. Furthermore they exclude Chinese researchers working in the west.
I am confident that as long as most "international journals" are US or UK based there is no need to worry. There are gatekeepers. Usually the math is like this: A better journal appears 4 to 6 times a year with about 10 articles each. At least half of those are more or less fixed before even the CfP goes out. The rest is open for the world.
Besides, as was written in the article: "with almost 9 per cent of papers originating in China having at least one US-based co-author.". There is a reason for this: Without the help of a native speaker you have hardly a chance of getting into a good journal [another alternative is a high-quality, professional lectorate service, but I assume is rather hard to get in China]. So both knowledge and fame are shared between east and west. The more qualitative (= more relevant) it gets, the higher the hurdles for a foreign contribution. Language comes into play.
I wished there was a Chinese based research and publication ecosystem with relevant publication outlets in the local idiom [like the ones you can find across Europe].
Because then knowing the Chinese language would matter a lot more in a professional context.
pretzellogic
January 27, 2010, 04:43 AMIt's my understanding that in China, there is an aversion to telling the boss that he is wrong on some topic, or some course of action. Certainly, this is not the case in an American or western business that is effectively run. If Chinese business can incorporate feedback from wherever it comes (underling, outsider), then that would be an interesting development in China's tech progress toward commercializing something new, that doesn't already exist elsewhere.
henning
pretzellogic,
interesting that you say that. I still have the words of an offshoring old-hand in my ear: The reason that offsoring to India works so well in the US is because of cultural similarities - both in the US and India you do as you are told by your boss and don't contradict. In Germany, however, everybody has her or his own opinion on overything and utters it all the time. Both systems have their merits".
pretzellogic
henning, Interesting in light of your post. I know I can tell my boss, "we need to go in this direction", and that advice might be taken, but I feel ok about giving it. I know plenty have expressed boss-contradicting comments in all the organizations I have worked in. I also know that with tens of thousands of businesses, large and small, that not all shops are top-down decision makers, plenty are bottom-up as well. What I probably should have said clearer is that (and I am guessing here, based on feedback from people that worked in China) there are likely more top-down decisions made in Chinese businesses than in American businesses. We should probably do a survey of German and American businesses for a conclusive answer on cultural similarities about opinion expression!
Regarding the offshoring post, I may be confusing offshoring with outsourcing, but my take has been that the offshored stuff goes to India because of lower cost and reasonable capability. But i've talked to companies that ended up bringing what was outsourced/offshored back in-house.
simonpettersson
I have no experience with American business, but certainly the most common attitude of Swedish companies is "You're the guys on the ground. You know what's going on. We rely on you to tell us if we're making mistakes." There's also almost always a way to tell someone in a position to act about things that might feel weird to talk to your boss about.
EDIT: Interestingly, this lesson was mostly learned from Japanese companies.
xiaophil
Henning,
Honestly, I think nothing could be further from the truth. In America, so many of us are told from an early age to stick up for what we believe is right, and I never hear people say, "He's the boss, don't contradict him." On more than one occasion I have seen subordinates openly arguing with the boss in front of everyone. The general rule is that Americans admire people who stick up for something they believe to be true (unless of course it utterly contradicts their own opinion, but that's human nature). I think this is one reason we often get criticized, i.e 'arrogant Americans'. I hear a lot of Chinese say that one should never openly contradict his or her boss because it can only bring trouble. I always am a bit shocked by this attitude and tell them as diplomatically as possible, "Not in America." Who knows, maybe I'm just biased, but if I had to guess, your old-hand friend just happened to meet the wrong batch of Americans.
henning
January 27, 2010, 05:53 AMpretzellogic,
interesting that you say that. I still have the words of an offshoring old-hand in my ear: The reason that offsoring to India works so well in the US is because of cultural similarities - both in the US and India you do as you are told by your boss and don't contradict. In Germany, however, everybody has her or his own opinion on overything and utters it all the time. Both systems have their merits".
pretzellogic
January 26, 2010, 12:57 PMinteresting. Clear that China's growth rate for research papers is growing significantly, but I guess even if the US has 421,000 papers as of 2020 peer reviewed, and China has 422,000 papers peer reviewed, what does that mean if there are questions about the quality of the research, and there are US scientists collaborating on the Chinese research as well? China still needs to commercialize the technologies that are the subject of the research, which is often not easy to do, or is so basic, it's not at the state yet where anything can be commercialized.