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China produced more than twice as many materials science papers than the next most-prolific country, the United States, in 2017. The country enjoys strong academic collaborations nationally and internationally, as well as a focus on applied and medical sciences when it comes to the materials being made. Funding for materials science in China has quadrupled since 2008. Learn how the country is using its strength in materials to advance knowledge and to solve many of its domestic problems — including its ageing population and its polluted manufacturing sector.