Building a powerhouse

The story of China's phenomenal growth in scientific output during the past three years can be told through the experience of eleven cities. Each has displayed impressive output, measurable in one way or another, as determined by analysis of Nature Index data from 2012 to 2014.

Four index metrics have been used to evaluate the performances of China's cities: article count (AC); fractional count (FC); collaboration score and weighted fractional count (WFC). (For a full explanation of these metrics see S190.)

Represented here in yellow are China's scientific heavyweights Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing: the cities that have shown the highest total output. The index data also reveal some of the cities where total scientific output has been growing fastest —China's rising stars —are Xi'an, Chengdu and Hangzhou, shown in orange. Delving deeper into index data identifies Shenzhen, Beijing and Wuhan, represented in red, as the nation's industrial research powerhouses; where high scientific output is being used to generate economic return. Meanwhile, the cities most actively pursuing partnerships to advance scientific discoveries are Hefei, Tianjin and Hong Kong, in purple.