IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2406.05917.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

China's Rising Leadership in Global Science

Author

Listed:
  • Renli Wu
  • Christopher Esposito
  • James Evans

Abstract

Major shifts in the global system of science and technology are destabilizing the global status order and demonstrating the capacity for emerging countries like China and India to exert greater influence. In order to measure changes in the global scientific system, we develop a framework to assess the hierarchical position of countries in the international scientific collaboration network. Using a machine-learning model to identify the leaders of 5,966,623 scientific teams that collaborated across international borders, we show that Chinese scientists substantially narrowed their leadership deficit with scientists from the US, UK, and EU between 1990 and 2023 in absolute terms. Consequently, China and the US are on track to reach an equal number of team leaders engaged in bilateral collaborations between 2027 and 2028. Nevertheless, Chinese progress has been considerably slower in per-collaborator terms: after adjusting for the number of non-leaders from each country, our models do not predict parity between the US and China until after 2087. These dynamics extend to 11 critical technology areas central to ongoing diplomacy between the two nations, such AI, Semiconductors, and Advanced Communications, and to China's scientific leadership with respect to the European Union and the United Kingdom. Thus, while China's elite scientists are achieving leadership in the international scientific community, China's scientific enterprise continues to face developmental constraints. We conclude by reviewing several steps that Chinese science is taking to overcome these constraints, by increasing its engagement in scientific training and research in signatory nations to the Belt and Road Initiative.

Suggested Citation

  • Renli Wu & Christopher Esposito & James Evans, 2024. "China's Rising Leadership in Global Science," Papers 2406.05917, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2406.05917
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.05917
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin F. Jones, 2009. "The Burden of Knowledge and the "Death of the Renaissance Man": Is Innovation Getting Harder?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(1), pages 283-317.
    2. Richard B. Freeman & Wei Huang, 2014. "Collaboration: Strength in diversity," Nature, Nature, vol. 513(7518), pages 305-305, September.
    3. Petra Moser & Alessandra Voena & Fabian Waldinger, 2014. "German Jewish ?migr?s and US Invention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3222-3255, October.
    4. Richard B. Freeman, 2015. "Immigration, International Collaboration, and Innovation: Science and Technology Policy in the Global Economy," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 153-175.
    5. Freeman, Richard Barry, 2015. "Immigration, International Collaboration, and Innovation: Science and Technology Policy in the Global Economy," Scholarly Articles 14400082, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    6. Freeman, Richard Barry & Huang, Wei, 2014. "Collaboration: Strength in diversity," Scholarly Articles 33496269, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. C. A. Hidalgo & B. Klinger & A. -L. Barabasi & R. Hausmann, 2007. "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations," Papers 0708.2090, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "Reprint of The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    2. Haeussler, Carolin & Sauermann, Henry, 2020. "Division of labor in collaborative knowledge production: The role of team size and interdisciplinarity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(6).
    3. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    4. Igor Linkov & Benjamin Trump & Greg Kiker, 2022. "Diversity and inclusiveness are necessary components of resilient international teams," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-5, December.
    5. Alje van Dam & Koen Frenken, 2019. "Variety, Complexity and Economic Development," Papers 1903.07997, arXiv.org.
    6. Riillo, Cesare Fabio Antonio & Peroni, Chiara, 2022. "Immigration and entrepreneurship in Europe: cross-country evidence," MPRA Paper 114580, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Hausmann, Ricardo & Neffke, Frank M.H., 2019. "The workforce of pioneer plants," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 628-648.
    8. Valentina Di Iasio & Ernest Miguelez, 2022. "The ties that bind and transform: knowledge remittances, relatedness and the direction of technical change [Brain drain or brain bank? The impact of skilled emigration on poor-country innovation]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 423-448.
    9. Petros Gkotsis & Antonio Vezzani, 2016. "Technological diffusion as a recombinant process," JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation 2016-07, Joint Research Centre.
    10. Pierre-Alexandre Balland & Cristian Jara-Figueroa & Sergio G. Petralia & Mathieu P. A. Steijn & David L. Rigby & César A. Hidalgo, 2020. "Complex economic activities concentrate in large cities," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(3), pages 248-254, March.
    11. Ferrucci, Edoardo & Lissoni, Francesco, 2019. "Foreign inventors in Europe and the United States: Diversity and Patent Quality," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    12. Jielan Ding & Zhesi Shen & Per Ahlgren & Tobias Jeppsson & David Minguillo & Johan Lyhagen, 2021. "The link between ethnic diversity and scientific impact: the mediating effect of novelty and audience diversity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7759-7810, September.
    13. Galetti, Jefferson Ricardo Bretas & Tessarin, Milene Simone & Morceiro, Paulo César, 2020. "Local, Complementarity and Similarity Relatedness in Different Regional and Sectoral Contexts," TD NEREUS 12-2020, Núcleo de Economia Regional e Urbana da Universidade de São Paulo (NEREUS).
    14. Liu, Junwan & Guo, Xiaofei & Xu, Shuo & Song, Yinglu & Ding, Kaiyue, 2023. "A new interpretation of scientific collaboration patterns from the perspective of symbiosis: An investigation for long-term collaboration in publications," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    15. Hird, Mackenzie D. & Pfotenhauer, Sebastian M., 2017. "How complex international partnerships shape domestic research clusters: Difference-in-difference network formation and research re-orientation in the MIT Portugal Program," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 557-572.
    16. Yiling Lin & Carl Benedikt Frey & Lingfei Wu, 2022. "Remote Collaboration Fuses Fewer Breakthrough Ideas," Papers 2206.01878, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    17. Wei Cheng & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2021. "Marginalized and Overlooked? Minoritized Groups and the Adoption of New Scientific Ideas," NBER Working Papers 29179, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Xu, Dafeng, 2017. "Acculturational homophily," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 29-42.
    19. O’Clery, Neave & Kinsella, Stephen, 2022. "Modular structure in labour networks reveals skill basins," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).
    20. Ho Fai Chan & Vincent Lariviére & Naomi Moy & Ali Sina Önder & Donata Schilling & Benno Torgler, 2021. "East German Science After Communism: Why does Westernization correlate with Productivity," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2021-09, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group, revised 30 Jun 2022.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2406.05917. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.