The Chinese government’s budget for basic research is set to increase by more than 25 percent this year, according to Science magazine’s Science Insider website. A draft budget published last week pledges more than 32 billion yuan (Rs.25,600 crore) for basic research in 2012. This represents a 26 percent increase on last year’s budget.

Overall, Chinese state spending on science and technology is set to increase by more than 12 percent to nearly 230 billion yuan (Rs.184,000 crore). The news follows a succession of lavish increases for Chinese science funders in recent years. The budget of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the country’s main competitive funding agency, was doubled between 2009-2011. The impact of increased funding has been reflected in higher output.

A report prepared for the UK’s department for business, innovation and skills last year by Elsevier shows China’s production of published research papers rose from just under 200,000 in 2006 to more than 330,000 in 2010. Likewise Thomson Reuters shows that China’s share of physics papers produced globally rose from 8.2 percent in 2001 to 18.6 percent in 2010.

However, the quality of China’s papers continues to lag behind those of Western countries. The citation impact of its physics papers, for instance, has barely improved in the past decade and still languishes well below the world average. But a report prepared by Elsevier last year shows that China is increasing its world share of papers in 95 percent of fields in which it is already strong.

(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)