NEWS OF TH E WEEK
CHINA’S GROWING ROLE IN SCIENCE
QUANTITY OR QUALITY China’s science and engineering labor force has grown rapidly in the past decade in comparison to that in the U.S. … Science & engineering labor force, millions 5 4
COMPETITION: Study shows country is
gaining strength but facing hurdles
EAR THAT CHINA might overtake the U.S. lead
F
in science and technology has spurred many research studies and congressional hearings. And a new analysis comparing China and U.S. science and technology data confirms that China has made impressive gains in the past decade. But the study also points out that China faces significant challenges (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2014, DOI: 10.1073/ pnas.1407709111). The U.S. “is not really failing from a historical point of view,” says Yu Xie, a sociologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who led the study. However, “America as a dominant player in science may be challenged by the rise of science in other countries,” including China. The paper documents a massive increase in China’s science and technology labor force, fueled primarily by the undergraduate and graduate science degree holders the county is producing. A large increase in the number of scientific publications has ensued, Xie says. But China faces challenges in the quality of its research, which are reflected in its lower citation rates, concerns about scientific fraud, and fears the country is not scientifically creative. Xie says the massive bureaucracy that oversees universities and research institutes has led to many of these problems. For example, funding is decided by bureaucrats rather than peer review. “Chinese scientists are keenly aware of the problem,” Xie says, and they are experimenting with ways to fix it. “You can already see there is a steady improvement in quality.”—ANDREA WIDENER
Key for all graphs 3
■ U.S. 2 ■ China 1 0
1980/82a
1990
2000
2010
a U.S. data are from 1980; China’s are from 1982.
… as has China’s number of research publications … Total research articles 200,000 180,000 160,000 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 1990 92 94 96 98 00 02
04 06
08
“America as a dominant player in science may be challenged by the rise of science in other countries.”
10
… but China’s number of highly cited papers has not kept the same pace.
—YU XIE, SOCIOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Top 1% of cited research articles 4,000 3,500 3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0 2001 02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
SOURCE: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
VIETNAM Novasep will build sorbitol plant as government promotes drug industry Custom pharmaceutical maker Novasep will team up with a local partner to build Vietnam’s first plant to manufacture the drug ingredient sorbitol. The project is coming together soon after Vietnam’s adoption of a new strategy to promote local production of pharmaceuticals. Novasep will build the 20,000-metricton-per-year facility in Tay Ninh province, north of Ho Chi Minh City. Although the French firm is mostly a custom manufacturer of drug ingredients, its industrial biotech business unit sells process development services, single process units,
and entire production lines to companies that make ingredients such as sorbitol and amino acids. The new sorbitol facility will be owned and operated by Tay Ninh Chemical Industry, a joint venture of Vietnam National Chemical Group and Tay Ninh Sugar. Its output will be used to make stabilizing and moistening agents for drugs, foods, and cosmetics. “This project is one of the first to emerge from Vietnam’s national development planning for pharmaceutical chemistry,” Novasep says. The plan, adopted
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JUNE 23, 2014
in January, aims to cut costs and reduce the country’s dependence on imported drugs and drug ingredients. Vietnam imports nearly all its drug ingredients now; the policy aims for 20% local production. Pharmaceutical prices are far higher in Vietnam than elsewhere, said a recent study by Decision Resources, a health care market research firm. But foreign manufacturers attempting to sell in Vietnam face a complex regulatory environment, weak intellectual property protection, and a regionally fragmented market, the study noted.—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
