China is now world’s No 1 science power, top Russian scientist Artem Oganov says
After receiving Chinese award, chemist and materials researcher says it gives him confidence that he’s ‘on the right track’
After Oganov visited China in 2008, he told colleagues and friends in Europe that the country was “on the way” to being No 1 in both industry and science, but said this was met with scepticism at the time.
He told the South China Morning Post on Monday that, 18 years on, “China is No 1 – in industry, in economy, and indeed also in science.”
Noting that America used to be the top scientific power, he pointed to the fact that China now accounts for a third of global scientific publications, adding that it was not just numbers, but “quality”.
China holds the top spot in the 2026 Nature Index – an analysis of over 125,000 research articles published in 178 leading publications in 2025 – with the US in second place.