The Race for World Leadership of Science and Technology: Status and Forecasts
世界科技领军地位之争：国家发展状况与趋势分析

The US and EU have been vying for leadership of science and technology; now they are being overtaken by the People's Republic of China. The US is now leading in most input indicators, but the EU has taken the lead in important outputs. While the PRC remains behind in most indicators, its incredible progress from being underdeveloped during the Cultural Revolution to being a contender in this race is almost unprecedented. Qualitative assessment of fields of research and development, based on recent expert review studies, confirm that many Chinese labs have made rapid progress. Extrapolations from the current status and recent rates of change suggest that China will soon rival the others as a scientific superpower in many indicators. Further, a formal forecast of national publication shares can now be made, perhaps for the first time. The input to the model is a country’s share of world R&D investment. If current trends in investment continue, the US and EU are forecast to continue to decline, while the PRC is expected to near parity with them within ten years in the Science Citation Index. Some confirmation comes from other databases—China has already passed the US in Inspec and Compendex.