China’s spending on research and development (R&D) currently accounts for a fifth of the global total. China’s R&D budget is also growing more quickly than that of the USA and the EU.
China’s share of the total global research output is rapidly increasing. The country now publishes the most academic articles in the world. The quality of research produced in China, measured as field-weighted citation impact (FWCI), is also increasing, although considerable differences remain between research fields. Swedish research actors therefore need to understand the Chinese research system. Given the size of China’s total R&D budget, it is also important to understand how Chinese research funding works.
The aim of this report is to explain how the Chinese research funding system is structured and how it works in practice. The report discusses the R&D funding in China at national, provincial and local levels, and also sheds light on regional differences in the prioritisation of different research areas.
This is a republication of a report originally published by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science.
For more information, please contact
Erik Forsberg
STINT’s representative in China
erik.forsberg@stint.se
+86 186 5889 3006
