China has overtaken the United States and has become a leader in high-quality chemical research, according to the rating “Natureindex». Since 2017, the number of published studies in China has grown by almost 18%, and the number of studies in the United States since last year decreased by 6%.

China led this rating for the first time: the resource tracks the share of countries based on an analysis of 82 leading magazines. The United States took first place for three consecutive years. In November China was the second research country after the United States.
 
All the other 10 countries included in the list — Germany, Japan, Great Britain, France, South Korea, India, Canada and Spain, retained the places that they had since 2017. In these ones, with the exception of Spain, the number of publications decreased. Japan recorded the largest drop — a decline of almost 13%. In Spain, however, there was a moderate increase in chemistry publications by 1.3%.
 
China seeks to further increase the volume of research, for example, trying to attract Chinese scientists abroad and offering its scientists cash prizes for publication in prestigious journals. However, a series of scientific fraudulent scandals also occurred in the country, and it ranks seventh in the number of denials of published works.