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Science and Research Collaboration between Australia and China
2011Contents
Executive Summary 3
Key Findings 5
1 Introduction 7
2 External Environment 8
2.1 Socio-economic context 8
2.1.1 Key economic, social and environmental challenges 10
2.2 Global science and research context 11
3 Science and Research in Australia and China 16
3.1 Science and research systems 16
3.1.1 China 16
3.1.2 Australia 18
3.2 Research organisations 19
3.2.1 China 20
3.2.2 Australia 21
3.3 Priorities 23
3.3.1 China 23
3.3.2 Australia 23
3.4 Measures and indicators 24
3.4.1 Investment 25
3.4.2 Human resources 30
3.4.3 Publications (including fields of study) 33
3.4.4 Patents 42
4 Bilateral Science and Research Collaboration 46
4.1 Historical development 46
4.1.1 Collaboration between individuals 46
4.1.2 Collaboration between agencies and institutions 46
4.1.3 Collaboration between universities 47
4.1.4 Cooperation between governments 48
4.2 Qualitative characteristics of collaboration 49
4.2.1 Australia and China are already important collaboration partners 50
4.2.2 Long term relationships 51
4.2.3 Effect of student exchanges 52
4.2.4 Commercialisation links still limited 53
4.3 Quantitative analysis 54
4.3.1 Important note on the data 55
4.3.2 Growth in joint publications 55
4.3.3 Joint publications by subject area 59
4.3.4 Citation impact of joint publications 62
4.3.5 Institutional distribution of joint publications 64
4.3.6 Top ten Australian institutions collaborating with China 66
4.3.7 Differing focus of research areas 67
4.3.8 Citation impact compared to the world average 72
5 The Future: Challenges and Opportunities 76
5.1 Governments and collaboration with China 76
5.2 Research institutions and collaboration with China 77
5.3 Businesses and collaboration with China 78
5.4 Conclusion 80
Appendix A 81
Mapping of subject areas between Web of Science and ANZSRC 81
Appendix B 89
Mapping of subject areas between Web of Science and Scopus 89
Executive Summary
China has become one of Australia’s most important international partners. China is now Australia’s largest trading partner. More students come to Australia from China than from any other country. Chinese is the second most widely spoken language in Australia after English. Science and research collaboration has grown to feature prominently in the relationship and is a consistently positive area of bilateral relations. From early individual contacts in the 1960s, China and Australia have become prolific partners in scientific publications, with a wide range of institutions involved and the full spectrum of the sciences under investigation. The next frontier for joint engagement is innovation, applying and commercialising the outcomes of research for mutual benefit to the wider communities of both countries and beyond.
This report has been prepared by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE) in collaboration with The Centre for International Economics (CIE) to assist agencies, institutions and individuals to make informed decisions about future science and research engagement with China. It provides a comparative analysis of policy frameworks and investments in science and research in Australia and China, an assessment of the scale and focus of current science and research collaboration between our countries and information about opportunities and challenges for future science and research collaboration between Australia and China. It also highlights the opportunities for institutions and businesses to increase collaboration in innovation and commercialisation.
The economies and populations of Australia and China (Section 2) offer a strong contrast. China is a developing country rapidly rising to superpower status at the core of the world’s most economically dynamic region. Australia is a developed middle power on the rim of that region. However, these two disparate countries are strongly linked by trade and personal ties, with China now Australia’s top export destination, import source and source of overseas students.
The global science, research and innovation system is dominated by a few large countries including the USA, UK, China, Germany, France and Japan, with several smaller but highly innovative European nations such as the Netherlands and Switzerland important in areas such as patenting. Despite its relatively small population and economy, Australia is amongst the top twenty nations in the world in overall measures of research expenditure, research workforce, scientific publications output and patent registrations.
Australia also performs well per capita in most of those measures of science and research. With only 0.3% of the world’s population, Australia now produces 3% of the world’s scientific publications, and this share has actually risen in the last decade despite a fast growing global output. China has just under 20% of world population, and after fast growth in scientific output now accounts for 9% of publications, second in the world.
The science and research systems in Australia and China (Section 3) differ greatly in scale, investment, and organisation. While Australia has more science and research investment per capita and as a share of the total economy, investment in China is growing very rapidly, both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP. Science and research strengths, relative to the rest of the world, also vary. On average, the influence of Australian science and research (as measured by citation rates for publications) is higher than the world average and rising slowly, while Chinese citation rates are below the world average and improving steadily.
International science and research collaboration (Section 4) is becoming increasingly important for strengthening capacity and impact, meeting costs of critical infrastructure, and addressing complex and long-term strategic challenges. Science and research collaboration is not always easy, especially when long distances and cultural differences need to be overcome, but international collaboration is nevertheless growing. Collaboration in science and research also brings benefits beyond the academic sphere, with improved cross-cultural understanding, personal and institutional linkages, and increased capacity of economies to absorb and utilise innovations from abroad.
Science and research collaboration between Australia and China is already significant. The depth and range of Australia-China science and research collaboration is growing steadily, and has matured over the 30 years since the signing of the treaty on science cooperation to move far beyond aid and development oriented initiatives to a rich set of mutually beneficial collaborations between individuals, teams and organisations.
Science and research organisations foster collaboration through a variety of processes and funding sources. Key characteristics of successful Australia-China science and research collaborations have been identified from a combination of bibliometric analysis, literature review and stakeholder consultation. This analysis highlights the importance of investing in long-term relationships, including the importance of today’s students to maintaining relationships into the future. It also shows the increasing attractiveness of China’s rapidly expanding science and research system, the importance of government in China’s science system and the limited development to date of research commercialisation ventures.
Publications and citation data indicate that the subject focus of collaboration reflects the areas of strength of each country, as represented by the subject distribution of joint publications and those for each country separately. In terms of joint research publications, China is the third most important partner country for Australia and Australia is the sixth most important partner country for China. The citation impact of Australia’s joint publications with China varies by subject area. There is a higher impact for joint publications than for Australia’s overall publications output in a small majority of subject areas.
A wide range of organisations collaborate across a wide range of areas. However, a small number of Australian institutions (six universities, plus CSIRO) and Chinese institutions (Chinese Academy of Sciences, plus ten universities) account for more than half of the current collaboration (as measured by joint publications over the last decade). The top ten Australian institutions collaborating with China generally produce joint publications with higher citations than the overall Australian output of publications in a subject area. Most of these institutions have also seen an improvement in the citation rate of joint publications over time.
The final section of this report (Section 5) highlights future challenges and opportunities for governments, research institutions and innovative businesses as they undertake various activities associated with Australia-China science and research collaboration. Expanding less developed channels of collaboration, such as commercialisation of research outcomes, will boost the innovative capability of both countries and lead the transformation of industries, economies and societies for a sustainable future.
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Key Findings
n Australia and China have very different economic structures, but are closely linked by trade, with China now Australia's largest trading partner.
n China and Australia both face some similar policy challenges that are reflected in the focus of their government effort and the focus of their research. These challenges are particularly evident in global and local environmental issues, meeting the healthcare needs of aging populations and deciding future economic directions to build and sustain prosperity in a changing world.
n In today’s globalised system, the science and research systems of all major countries are interlinked to varying extents. Most leading scientific nations produce a quarter to half their publications through international collaboration. Australia and China have been increasing their share of world scientific output since 1981, China spectacularly so.
n While the USA and Europe still leadtotal research spending and output, China has become one ofthe world's leading scientific countries. Although a smaller nation, Australia outperforms both China and the OECD average on a per capita basis. Both China and Australia currently spend a smaller share of GDP on R&D than the OECD average, however, this gap is shrinking due to increasing investments by both countries.
n China's research system has a strong role for central government direction and strategic priority setting, while Australia's system places more emphasis on collaboration between a range of agencies focused on different parts of the research and innovation process.
n In both China and Australia, the majority of research in spending terms is carried out by industry. Research is also performed by universities and public institutions, including a major national research agency, in both cases.
n Both countries have prioritised developing a national innovation system to use science and research to build prosperity and address key challenges, within their own specific contexts.
n In both China and Australia, the shares of R&D investment funded and performed by business (including state-owned enterprises) are large and increasing, while the corresponding shares for government are decreasing. Australia investscomparatively more of its spending in basic research. The Australian higher education sectorcurrently has a more prominent rolein the research system than in China. It performs a larger share of research and employs a larger share of researchers.
n Australia and China have both increased theirown shares of world publications and citations over time, with China increasing more rapidly. International collaboration issignificant for both countries broadly, with about half of Australian publications and a quarter of Chinese publications having an international co-author. Australia and China are each a significant partner for the other in this collaboration. The United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada are extremely important partners for both.
n Australia and China generally do not specialise in the same research areas, relative to the rest of the world. This complementarity in research strengths may provide incentives to develop collaborative relationships, especially in areas that are also of strategic global importance, such as sustainable agriculture and energy.
n Australia currently has a higher per capita share of the world's triadic patent families than China, but China has a higher share in absolute terms, and its share is growing rapidly while Australia’s is falling.
n Science and research cooperation between Australia and China has strengthened over time,moving from individual- and organisation-based approaches to formal government-to-government collaboration and joint funding.
n Although a wide range of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms are available to support collaboration between China and Australia, the key role of China's central government in its research system makes government-level linkages an important part of successful collaboration. Establishing a long-term relationship based on mutual trust is vital.
n The large number of Chinese students studying in Australia has the potential to develop networks that assist future collaborative efforts. In particular, Chinese alumni of Australian research organisations are a key avenue for developing the relatively small number of commercialisation collaborations between Australia and China.
n The research collaboration relationship between Australia and Chinais already strong and continues to grow, with rapid increases in the number of joint publications, both in absolute terms and as shares of national and world output.
n The fields with the highest proportions of Australia-China joint publications have beenin the natural sciences and engineering, such as mathematical sciences, technology, chemical sciences, physical sciences, and earth sciences. There is less Australia-China collaboration in the humanities and social sciences, even relative to the smaller national outputs in these fields.
n Collaboration with China often improves the impact of publications, with joint publications in more than half of the subject areas examined having an average citation impact higher than that for all Australian publications in the subject area.
n In both countries, the majority of joint publications are produced by a smallnumber of top institutions. These institutions typically have specific areas of collaborative research strength, where they achieve high shares of joint publications compared to other institutions and these areas of strength tend to change over time.
n Australian agencies, research institutions and businesses face common, as well as different, challenges and opportunities as they plan and implement science and research related collaboration with China. Given the importance of the bilateral relationship, and the significant role of bilateral science and research collaboration within it, there is great potential for increasing mutual benefits even further, particularly in the less developed area of utilisation and commercialisation of research outcomes.
n In addition to directly supporting the activities of publicly funded research agencies, Governments also play a key facilitation role in promoting Australia-China science and research collaboration.
n Due to the breadth of the bilateral science and research relationship, research institutions have the opportunity to play to their own particular strengths and develop relationships focused on their own priorities. Strategic choice of partners in Australia and China, cultural awareness and a patient focus on long term aspirations will foster the most sustainable relationships and the greatest benefits over time.