In 2022, China, for the first time, took over the United States as the most important scientific knowledge producer with a number little over 830,000 scientific papers. This number accounted for around 15% of the world’s 5.4 million articles1. From hindsight, it sounds like China is producing little than it should given the larger number of PhD researchers and seasoned academics working in the countries’ 30000 plus universities.
However, the real picture needs further clarification____!:
The number of scientific articles captured by data published in Nature Insight and other publishers is only those published in English. English proficiency; the Achilles’ heel for many researchers and the source of their rise or fall, hinders many brilliant researchers from getting an international shed light. [ Before, this certainly opens a door and a business opportunity for many to work as proofreaders for handsome wages]. Therefore, if we take into consideration the number of publications in the CNKI database, the results and impact could be far greater.
Following the China-Western tensions during the pandemic era, English as a language fell out of favor, and the double-cut policy was meant primarily to diminish the diffusion of Western ideology by minimizing the number of English materials as well as the teaching of the language itself. Closely related to this, was the publishing in English itself, let alone with Western publishers for very high article processing fees (2800 USD). The sparked debate about this issue, led many universities to reject any APC exceeding 2000 USD, while others suggested that processing fees should be around 1200 USD2.
As shown in the figure below, the percentage of papers with all Chinese addresses in Scopus increased significantly, rising from 4.0% in 2000 to 17.9% in 2016. International collaborations also saw an increase, from 0.4% to 2.8% of papers, while papers with Chinese names but without Chinese addresses went up from 2.9% to 5.3%. When weighted, the Chinese contribution to Scopus papers nearly quadrupled, growing from 5.9% in 2000 to 23.3% in 20163.
In 2020 we estimate the annual revenues from article processing charges (APCs) among major scholarly journal publishers to have exceeded 2 billion US dollars. China is now the world’s largest payer of APCs4.
The data presented above could have various interpretations. some argue that APC increases the amount of articles without a paywall hence increasing the impact of science. Meanwhile, others oppose by stating that it creates dependencies for authors and goes against any economic “logical” model by asking the authors who get paid by the taxpayers’ money to have their research published for another portion of taxpayers’ money or put it behind a paywall and ask the taxpayer once more to pay for access?. What's more, some even mention the ethical side and the quality of research published in open-access journals. Golden open-access publishers driven by the commercial side, might have less incentive to pursue a rigorous peer review. Hence publishing highly flawed research papers5.
Nevertheless, there is a heated debate among stakeholders in China and elsewhere about the APC, scientific output, and China’s policy on the matter. As a researcher yourself, we would like to hear your point of view on this matter in the comments.
Owens, B. (2024). China’s research clout leads to growth in homegrown science publishing. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01596-2 .
same as above.
Xie, Q., & Freeman, R. B. (2018). Bigger Than You Thought: China's Contribution to Scientific Publications and Its Impact on the Global Economy. China & World Economy, 27(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12265
Gasparyan, A. Y., Yessirkepov, M., Voronov, A. A., Koroleva, A. M., & Kitas, G. D. (2019). Comprehensive Approach to Open Access Publishing: Platforms and Tools. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 34(27). https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2019.34.e184
Krawczyk, F., & Kulczycki, E. (2021). How is open access accused of being predatory? The impact of Beall's lists of predatory journals on academic publishing. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(2), 102271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102271
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This is a very big problem for those who do not have enough funding.