The Seat of Science Capital This Index Article Understated the Area of the Huairou Science City

Science cities index AFP/GETTY IMAGES AFP/GETTY The Lunar Palace 1 laboratory simulating a lunar environment at Beihang University, Beijing.

position as the number one science city in the Nature Index is based on article output The seat of in 82 high-quality journals chosen by an independent group of researchers. Collabo- ration between researchers based there and in science capital Shanghai, which is ranked number five among Nature Index science cities, also makes Beijing and Shanghai the most productive city part- Beijing holds firm as the number one city, nership in the index. In 2019, the two cities’ bilateral collaboration score (the sum of their a position shored up by a concentration of Shares on joint articles) was more than 50% funding, talent and power. By Hepeng Jia higher than the second most productive pair, New York and Boston.

Beijing’s resource concentration hen Zhu Dongqiang moved from the world’s best research institutions in the Beijing has been China’s political and cultural Nanjing to Beijing five years Earth and environmental sciences, but he capital for at least six centuries. Its contem- ago, he continued applying for was attracted to Peking University’s College porary domination of Chinese science is joint grants with his former of Urban and Environmental Sciences for its the result of Communist central planning: a colleagues, travelling 1,000 km resources, its concentration of leading scien- deliberate concentration of funding, insti- Wsouth each summer for teahouse discussions tists, its location in the capital, and the offer tutions, researchers and facilities, includ- about research ideas. of a fully tenured professorship. ing mega-science infrastructure such as the Nanjing University, where Zhu was a pro- Zhu’s move to Beijing placed him at Beijing Electron–Positron Collider, as well as fessor of environmental chemistry, is among the country’s science epicentre. Beijing’s the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical

Telescope (FAST), located 1,900 km away, in southwestern Guizhou, but operated by the Beijing-based National Astronomical Obser- SURFACE COMPOUNDING vatory of China. SPECIALIST COOPERATION Yang Liying, a senior research fellow at the National Science Library of the Chinese Zhu Dongqiang Satoshi Ōmura and Academy of Sciences (CAS), contrasts the (pictured) has William Campbell centrally planned resources in the three major spent more than shared half of the Chinese science hubs, Beijing, Shanghai and 20 years exploring 2015 Nobel Prize Nanjing, with the wider distribution of scien- how the surface in Physiology tific resources in Western economies, where properties of or Medicine research hotspots tend to have evolved over various absorptive for discovering time. materials, such as avermectin, Beijing boasts 7 and Shanghai has 5 of the clay, interact with a microbial 42 top universities in China that were singled environmental compound out for funding by the World’s First Rank Uni- pollutants. Now with derivatives versities and Disciplines’ programme, which a professor of environmental chemistry, effective against parasitic infections and was launched by the Chinese Ministry of Edu- Zhu in 2012 received a National Science insect pests. A year later, Zhang Lixin cation in 2017. At 6%, Beijing’s research inten- Foundation of China grant for distinguished (pictured) received China’s National Award sity, the ratio between R&D expenditure and young scientists in one of the country’s for the Advancement of Science and gross domestic product (GDP), is the highest most prestigious natural-sciences honours. Technology for leading the development in the country. Zhu joined Nanjing University (NJU) of a more efficient way to synthesize the Research concentration is most apparent in in 2005, and mostly collaborated with compound. the Haidian District in northwestern Beijing. It colleagues internally until he moved to The collaborative project between is home to Peking and Tsinghua universities, Peking University (PKU) in Beijing in 2015, Zhang’s team at the CAS Institute of and the Beijing Normal University, as well as after which his collaborations with NJU Microbiology, in Beijing, and three Chinese dozens of institutes of CAS, the nation’s flag- continued. For example, Zhu and his companies increased the fermentation ship research institution and world number colleagues at NJU developed a material efficiency of avermectin by 1,000 times one in the Nature Index. Haidian’s schools are called ordered mesoporous carbon, which compared with the original strain. reputed to be the best in Beijing and perhaps is highly effective at removing liquid salt Avermectin products are now made the country, a strong draw for leading scien- pollutants from water when oxidized. exclusively in China. tists looking to relocate, provided they can At PKU Zhu is also involved in a research Zhang applies the same collaborative afford the skyrocketing housing prices. Some initiative to understand more about the emphasis to his work synthesizing drugs of most productive chemistry labs at Peking global carbon cycle. His examination of from microorganisms as director of China’s and Tsinghua are located within a 15-minute the role of reactions at the interface National Key Lab of Bioreactor Engineering walk of the CAS Institute of Chemistry. Such of surfaces adds a microscope-based at the East China University of Science and proximity spawned the Zhongguancun high- perspective. Technology in Shanghai. This year, his lab tech zone, also in the Haidian district, where “I’ve stayed with interest-driven contributed to the development of both Google, Microsoft, IBM, Sony, Intel, Motorola research,” he says. “You need to nucleic acid and antibody testing kits for and Ericsson, among other multinational collaborate with many different people COVID-19 using biosensing and genome- companies, have research centres. with specific expertise and sparkling ideas editing techniques, which are now being In addition to Zhongguancun Park, Beijing to explore these novel areas.” exported to the United States and Europe. has anointed several other science precincts, most notably Huairou Science City, jointly Beijing was home to 40% of CAS’s research connections to top policymakers. developed by CAS and the Beijing municipal capacities and more than half of its top-level The high volume and quality of CAS’s scien- government. The complex spans 100.9 square research outputs. tific equipment is a magnet for research part- kilometres and hosts the main campus of the A ‘Future Science City’ is also slated for ners from other institutions in China. This, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing’s Changping district. The plan is for alongside a flow of its scholars to other insti- and many branches of CAS institutes. By the an enterprise-led technological innovation tutions, consolidates Beijing’s place as a hub end of 2019 it boasted 16 mega-science facil- hub, hosting dozens of corporate R&D centres of Chinese scientific collaboration, and those ities, such as a molecular materials testing spread over 43.5 square kilometres. of Shanghai and Nanjing, to a lesser extent. platform and an environmental surveillance A 2019 study in the journal Chinese Science system for the Tibetan plateau, worth a col- Seats of power Foundation (Z. Gao et al. Chin. Sci. Found. 4, lective investment of 3.94 billion yuan. The The presence of CAS is an important factor in 363–366; 2019) identified a net outflow of Dis- Beijing municipal government has spent the strength of China’s top three science cities, tinguished Young Scientist award recipients another 15.75 billion yuan (US$2.27 billion) especially Beijing, where 39 of CAS’s 110 insti- from Beijing, mainly caused by a move from on the science city’s urban infrastructure. tutes are based, compared with 16 in Shanghai CAS institutes to universities outside the cap- In 2017, Bai Chunli, president of CAS, and 5 in Nanjing. Its headquarters are in central ital. Recipients of this prestigious award are inspected the facility and expressed the joint Beijing, close to central government minis- given access to a National Science Foundation venture partners’ ambition to make Huairou tries and the Communist Party headquarters at of China grant of up to 4 million yuan. Science City a world-class hub. He said that Zhongnanhai, facilitating the academy’s close These scholars build bridges between

Science cities index former and current employers. The practice TE TOP FIE CITIES of leading scientists having multiple labs at Increases in adjusted Share of 34.3% in chemistry, 61.0% in Earth and environmental sciences and 49.3% in life different universities or research institutes, sciences between 2015 and 2019 helped Beijing reach the number one spot overall and retain it in all subjects except life sciences where it is fifth globally (see graph on page S57). Adjusted Share accounts for the small particularly those where they previously annual variation in the total number of articles in Nature Index journals. worked, is common, because it not only helps their graduate students finish their Beijing New York Boston San Francisco-San Jose Shanghai programmes smoothly, but it helps former employers harvest more authorships and Overall Chemistry research grants. 1 1 Zhang Lixin left the Beijing-based CAS Insti- tute of Microbiology (IMCAS) in 2016 for the 2 2 Shanghai-based East China University of Sci- 3 3 ence and Technology (ECUST), where he is 4 4 director of the National Key Lab of Bioreactor Rank 5 Rank 5 Engineering. Zhang kept his lab at IMCAS until 6 6 early 2020 when his students had graduated, 7 7 managing it with online communication tools and frequent visits to Beijing for academic 8 8 meetings and grant applications. 2015 2019 2015 2019 Zhang’s two labs resulted in dozens of collaborative articles in top journals between Earth and environmental sciences Physical sciences

IMCAS and ECUST. “Beijing is a true power- 1 1 house [in China] with access to funding and 2 other opportunities, while Shanghai has a 10 3 very flexible policy and friendly business envi- 4 5 ronment,” Zhang says. “I always encourage 20 Rank returnees from abroad to first establish roots Rank 6 in Beijing before migrating to other cities.” 7 30 The prestige attached to many institutions 8 in Beijing and Shanghai means that China’s 9 brightest scholars often study there before 40 10 taking up academic appointments in their 2015 2019 2015 2019 cities of origin after graduating. The common practice of young scientists seeking FOCUS OF FUNDING R&D per R&D R&D/GDP Graduate capita expenditure ratio students co-authorship opportunities from their pre- Per capita R&D spending in China’s two main (US$) in 2019 in 2019 vious doctoral advisors, even as a courtesy, science hubs, Beijing (US$ billions) perpetuates Beijing and Shanghai’s research and Shanghai, is far higher than the national output dominance, says Tang Li, a professor average. The same is true Beijing 1,478 30.3 6% 361,000 of science policy at the Shanghai-based Fudan for Nanjing (US$776), China’s third science city, University. She adds that China’s mega-sci- Shanghai 793 21.4 3.9% 164,900 ranked 8th overall, 3rd ence projects often require several labs to for chemistry and 4th for apply collectively. This also boosts cross- Earth and environmental National 217 310.5 2.2% 2,860,000 city collaboration, especially among Beijing, sciences. SHANGHAI OF BEIJING AND GOVERNMENTS MUNICIPAL AND OF STATISTICS BUREAU SOURCE: Shanghai and other Chinese research hubs. China by 2015 reached higher outputs than On the Chinese side, more policies and The boost of returnees they did abroad. International collaborations grants should be made available to encourage Beijing, Shanghai, and to a lesser degree remained stable, but domestic co-authorships collaborations, both domestically and inter- Nanjing, have been priority destinations for significantly increased. “They seem to be nationally, Tang says. But, in terms of output in members of China’s Young Thousand Talents nodes connecting overseas colleagues, their the Nature Index, Beijing institutions’ collabo- Scheme, which was launched in 2012 to attract own labs, and their Chinese partners,” says Shi. rations within China, both within the city and young scientists overseas to return to China with other cities, are far more productive than as independent principal investigators with US–China tension those with US institutions. In 2019, the seven good salaries and research funding. Return- Despite this collaboration, all researchers con- Beijing–US pairs among the city’s top 10 inter- ees have boosted city collaboration between tacted by Nature Index expressed worry about national collaborators co-authored 80 Nature these major science hubs, according to a study the impact of tension between China and the Index articles each on average, compared with by Shi Dongbo, a research fellow at the School United States, including the expansion of visa 287 for the top 10 intra-Beijing pairs. Beijing’s of International and Public Affairs of Shanghai bans against scientists from Chinese institu- position as Nature Index’s top science city Jiao Tong University. Shi’s study, which has tions with military ties. Travel restrictions seems assured for some time yet. not yet been published, shows that after a and lockdowns caused by the pandemic may transition period of up to three years, most become a tipping point, breaking the work- Hepeng Jia is a freelance science writer Young Thousand Talents who returned to flows of cross-Pacific collaborations. based in Suzhou, China.

Correction The seat of science capital This Index article understated the area of the Huairou Science City. It is 100.9 square kilometres, not 68.4 square kilometres.