China’s research and development system in an international environment
Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to analyse the current status of the Chinese research and development (R&D) system in a global environment, compared to those of other nations. Design/methodology/approach – Extracting meaningful information from organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) (research intensity), Thomson Reuters (research output), UNESCO and cross-border education research team (C-BERT) (mobility) databases and analysing de facto international standards such as university rankings, the Chinese system is compared to those of other scientific powers (the world top expenders in R&D such as the USA, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and some European nations), both using absolute production values and those relative to the productivity of the R&D workforce, so a general view of such a system is offered to complement previous analyses. Findings – A rather utilitarian approach to R&D policy, linked to economic growth, with a strong role of a Government-backed industry and based on applied R&D rather than on basic science, is found. The emergence of China as a scientific power relies heavily on a small number of institutions and efficiency becomes the priority, as confirmed by the growing presence of Chinese universities in university rankings – which is linked to some internationalisation efforts – and by the quantitative analysis of science and technology macro-indicators. Nevertheless, those results still remain modest when the overall size of the Chinese R&D system is considered. Originality/value – A general view of the Chinese system is offered in this study by combining both the analysis of the inputs of the Chinese R&D (in a internationally comparable way) system and outputs (up to international standards).