The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences – China’s leading institute for physical sciences – provides a strong link between science and economic growth
While other provincial leaders are trying to make their own cities the next success story, there are other ways to connect science with economic growth. Often, the local branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) — the Beijing-headquartered mega-institute that is the global leader in the Nature Index — is a good place to start. CAS has dozens of regional centres throughout the country, such as the Institute of Botany in Kunming. These offshoot institutes sometimes respond to scientific practicalities: Kunming is located in a semi-tropical and extremely biodiverse region, for example. Second, leaders might attempt to establish some of the tie-ins with international investors and multinational corporations that have helped Shanghai’s biotech industry grow; the city hosts large research labs for pharmaceutical giants such as GSK and Pfizer, and a district for start-up businesses in Zhangjiang, where young innovators can get land, office space and tax breaks. They can coordinate so that each province focuses on a specific area of China’s domestic consumer market, like Shenzhen’s tech companies have done.
The partnership between the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of physics, CAS, is very high in terms of their performance in relation to other leading cities for physical sciences. It has a higher collaborative score than the long-established partnership between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is located in Massachusetts.
The role of the Asian cities in health-science innovation and research: A reply to a question from Harvard University professor George Daley on the ‘The rise of the American cities’
The four US cities that made up the top 10 have lost ground since the beginning of the century. The Los Angeles metropolitan area, in 9th place, had an almost 20% decline in adjusted Share in 2023.
The regional centres of Guangzhou and Qingdao, known for their water purification and renewable-energy initiatives, have also been improving their outputs, with increases of 106.3% and 179.8%, respectively, in adjusted Share between 2019 and 2023.
When a delegation of scientists from Japan visited Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, they inquired about the secret factors that make the area a hub for health-sciences research and innovation. In response, George Daley, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, gave the half-joking answer he normally uses when asked similar questions: “Just incubate two of the most important educational institutions on the planet, support them for 200 years, and watch the magic happen.”
Boston has a growing pot of venture capital. Drug development is so expensive that public research funding won’t carry all the costs, says an expert in science policy who focuses on China. “So, the role of the market is really important.”
London’s leading research collaboration, between University College London and the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (BCS 22.81) is almost equal to the New York MA’s Columbia University and New York–Presbyterian Hospital pairing (BCS 22.37).
Creating an innovation hub that people want to live in: A case study on the Chinese health-sciences and healthcare infrastructure in the 21st century
Indeed, for any sort of innovation hub to take off, there has to be a culture of entrepreneurialism and a mindset of “not being afraid to fail”, Sagan says. It’s important to have a hub that people want to live in. “There are great research universities that might have some innovation, like the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, but by and large, that’s not a place where people aspire to live because it’s a small town, and small towns are limited, by definition,” Sagan says. “Not to demean small towns, but most ambitious entrepreneurs and researchers want to go to top-tier cities like New York City, Boston, or Silicon Valley because they are places where their partners can also get good jobs, their kids can go to great schools and their community offers great cultural diversity — and it’s just cool to be there.”
Daley adds that another explanation is health-sciences research from 2022 to 2023 was probably still affected by problems linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people changed careers or took a while to return to work because of the supply-chain issues caused by the H1N1 flu. Boston was probably more insulated from these impacts than other US cities, he adds, because of its higher density of people and institutions.
The Healthy China 2030 plan is based on scientific advancement in health research. Specific plans to address China’s elderly population and improve health care are in the country’s 14th five-year plan. China’s National Health Commission’s science strategy also highlights similar goals, and the government is additionally investing in studying and developing traditional Chinese medicine. Some of the largest research grants in the health-sciences field in China are currently being given by the Ministry of Science and Technology and other public funders to university–hospital collaborations for translational research in service of these goals, Lyu says.
In order to act as a comprehensive national medical centre, construction began in Shanghai on the first of a nationwide network of hospitals. There are more than 100 talent-recruitment programmes operating at the national, provincial and city level and they are all used to lure back Chinese scientists who are working in the US or other Western countries. Many of these experts have left corporate positions abroad or vacated tenured roles at top-tier American universities, Dong says, including Harvard and MIT.
Lyu says that grants are in place to encourage partnerships between academia and industry in China. China still has issues with intellectual property rights which draw criticism from the United States and the West. She says that over the past decade or so China has evolved its regulatory framework and enforcement to a point where it is much better known for its protection of intellectual property. “The caveat is that the intent is not confined to intellectual-property rights protection itself, but rather to the overall desire to strengthen national security and increase the country’s competitiveness,” Střelcová says. The market size of China is a boon for innovators, regardless of intent.
Despite a decrease in its adjusted Share (−7.6%), New York’s extensive network of medical centres, academic institutions and biotechnology companies has helped the city to maintain its global lead. It also still contributes 12.6% of the total US Share in the biological sciences. One of the most dynamic and influential collaborations in the city is the partnership between Columbia University and New York University, which has driven advances in areas such neuroscience, cancer and regenerative science. This stands as one of the main pillars of New York’s leading institutional network, with a bilateral collaboration score (BCS) of 17.39. These two universities also form several strong connections with other local institutions, such as that between Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre and Columbia University (BCS 12.44), and Columbia University and Yale University (BCS 8.04).
A guide to the online version of the supplement is also available free at natureindex.com.
Count and Share are used to track research outputs. Each article that has at least one author from that country/territory is given a Count of 1 Regardless of the number of authors, the same article can contribute to the Count of multiple countries or institutions.
The Nature Index journals have small variations in the number of articles. It is arrived at by calculating the percentage difference in the total number of articles in the Index in a given year relative to the number of articles in a base year and adjusting Share values to the base year levels.
The bilateral collaboration score (CS) between two institutions A+B is the sum of each of their Shares on the papers to which both have contributed. There is a possibility of a bilateral collaboration between two institutions or countries that together co-author at least one article in a journal.
A profile page will be found on each query that lists the country or institution’s recent outputs. Articles can be displayed by journal, and then by article. The outputs are organized by subject. The pages list the institution or country’s/territory’s top collaborators, as well as its relationship with other organizations. The users can track the performance of the institution over the course of time.
The Anhui Capital of Anhui: a new vision of Beijing’s economy from a science-driven view on EVs and urbanization
For a selection of the most populous conurbations with significant output in the index in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India and Europe, we defined boundaries of metropolitan areas based on official specifications from census bureaus, statistical offices, government offices or as described in legal documents. The specifications typically group adjacent areas that have a high degree of social and economic integration, as measured by commuting ties. We adjusted the boundary to encompass an important institution with strong connections to other institutions that was located just outside the metropolitan area.
During the next five years, the adjusted Share of the city will increase by 33.9%. For its relatively small size,Denmark’s health- care sector is large, which will put it in good stead for continued growth.
When he spoke about the importance of new technologies to upgrade industry in China, he may have been thinking about places such as Hefei. The capital of Anhui province, it scores higher for natural sciences in the Nature Index Science Cities list than London, Los Angeles or Chicago, and is home to the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), the 5th ranked institution globally in the Nature Index in 2023. Hefei is the star student of China’s regional growth strategy; its rich network of scientific institutions and science graduates gave it the fertile soil for a world-beating industry — electric vehicles (EVs) — to grow. Breakthroughs in EV technology — such as a low-cost solid-state battery developed at USTC that might be a game-changer for the EV market — are part of an extended supply chain that stretches from scientific institutes on one end, through a sophisticated realm of factories and workshops, en route to a huge consumer market. Taken collectively, this makes for a new vision of China’s economy, one with scientific research at its genesis. There will be no shortage of cheerleaders for such a model in the national government, either. Zheng Shanjie, a former party secretary in Anhui province, is now head of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s main economic planning body.
We are pleased to acknowledge the financial support of the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park in producing this supplement. Nature retains sole responsibility for all editorial content.