Daily Times

China has avouched a significant triumph in taking over the countries in many aspects throughout the globe. Almost exactly, in the sprint of research in the current decade, China has jolted the world. For long, the country has been seriously putting her all efforts on ameliorating the research system in the universities through open scholarships. Thousands of students from all across the globe have increasingly been hovering to the country. Most importantly, China, as I have conferred in one of my articles, makes them knowledge generators. Downright truth is that the country remains atop in research with the help of these knowledge generators.

It is mostly the youth, which contributes more towards China. Hence, it has achieved a high rank. People, as usual, argue that China is a guardian-angel for Pakistan. It offers different scholarships to Pakistani students and also provides students with hefty monthly stipends so that they can study and receive degrees with no trouble.

The eye-opening question remains why is China fervently investing in students? The answer is aforesaid ab-initio and can unriddle the hugger-mugger. Students become knowledge generators in China and then produce knowledge in a greater deal and thus, China reaches the top.

China has stood as the second-biggest research contributor in the world

As per the statistics shown by a report concerning the publications released in 2018 by Scimago Journal Ranking (SJR), China has stood as the second-biggest research contributor in the world. The country has reached around 60, 00000 publications throughout the globe. Perhaps, China has caught this triumph just by a dint of the students from other countries.

Let’s confer about the financing of Research and Development (R & D) throughout the globe. A report was developed by “China Power” that took the countries’ funding status on R & D from 1991 to 2016. In 1991, China stood 16th out of 42 most funding countries on research and development but in the year of 2016, it was shown as the second biggest investor in research and development. This has also been confirmed through a report released by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2017. Ill-advisedly, Pakistan was nowhere in these 42 countries listed as the biggest investors. As far as the race between the US and China is concerned, around 2009 to 2013, China overtook the US to count the greatest number of researchers of any single country.

Basic and the applied research are the topmost areas whereupon China spends much greater than other drivers of change for the country. The country spends 11.8 per cent on basic research and 18.5 per cent on applied research. The most significant point is that these proportions of the GDP of China have taken an upsurge.

Undeniably, China has drawn the world’s attention towards herself. China has been putting all her endeavours on more research outputs and has also paid her domestic scientists a cash bonus to contribute more and more researches to international prestigious journals. As per Nature ranking, China has seen an almost 18 per cent rise in research published in the last two years. Is China not an example for the world?

China anticipates refurbishing its processes for choosing different research projects, providing funds, publishing outputs as well as its systems for academic assessment; proffering awards to develop them more rationally. Even with limited financial resources, it designs to render an adequate logistical as well as technical support for executing the basic research.

Pakistani youth goes annually to China but after they come back to their homeland, they do not reap the doles owing to a dearth of facilities. They cannot contribute to their home country as greatly as they previously performed in China. Publication time is too drowsy, which hampers the contributors from conducting another research study until their submitted work gets published and they are directed, by late responses to do their work again following the journal’s policy framework. Soon, they fall disconsolate. This is a major stumbling block in research productivity.

The writer is a member of the editorial board of a Russian Research Journal, “Bulletin of Science and Practice.”