Beijing and Shanghai once again rank in top five for high-quality research according to annual Nature Index, while nearly 30 other Chinese cities jump up the list, with up-and-comer Hefei beating London and Los Angeles and Guangzhou surpassing Paris.
Chinese cities are rapidly growing in high-quality scientific research while American and European rivals are dropping, according to a global ranking of top science cities by Nature Index released on Wednesday.
The “Leading 200 Science Cities” list – maintained by the academic journal Nature – tracks research output by measuring contributions to academic articles published in 82 of the world’s most influential natural science journals from 2015 to 2022.
A total of 32 cities in mainland China made the 2023 list, and almost all of them climbed up the rankings compared to their positions on last year’s list, with only one exception: Taiyuan, an inland city located in central China.
Five out of the top 10 cities on the 2023 list are in mainland China, and Beijing once again ranks as the top science city in the world.
China leads world in most-cited science papers: report
The top five cities – Beijing, New York, Shanghai, Boston, and the San Francisco Bay Area – remained unchanged.
But there were some notable shifts among the rest of the top-ranked cities. The other 18 mainland Chinese cities that made the top 50 jumped to a higher ranking compared to last year, while most major cities outside China, including Tokyo, Paris and London, fell. The only exception was Seoul, which rose two spots.
The Nature Index measures two different scores – “count” and “share”.
