China’s Scientific Rise

For someone who spent 14 years in a corporate research lab (seven of those in China) I don’t write much about research. Perhaps I should. One of the things that was obvious to me went I came East was that, given the scale of investment and the determinism and hard work going on, China would soon be catching up with the West in research. The numbers seem to be suggesting this will soon be true.

The New Scientist is reporting that by 2020 China will be the World’s largest producer of scientific knowledge. Between 1995 and 2006, China’s gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) grew at an annual rate of 18 percent. Now China is third in the World in GERD terms behind the US and Japan but ahead of the EU.

The Thomson Reuters Global Research Report on which the story is based is available for download.

This was also covered in the FT.

I think it’s pretty clear that soon when you turn an item over it’s going to say “Invented, Designed and Made in China”.