China’s research spending soars, Western science pressured

China is perhaps the world’s new science superpower in terms of gross spending on research and development, a new Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report reveals.

Meanwhile, research is under enormous pressure in two other research giants, America and Europe, says Sir Peter Gluckman, president of the International Science Council.

The statistical release published on 31 March also shows that spending on university research is growing more slowly than in the private and public research sectors in the OECD area.

By research area, there were major increases in spending on energy and the environment (up 29%) and on defence (up 16.1%).

OECD figures report that in 2023 China’s gross domestic expenditure on R&D, or GERD, was US$780.7 billion – 96% of US spending (US$823.4 billion), and up from 72% 10 years before.

“At 8.7%, growth in R&D expenditure in China continued to surpass that of the OECD area, the United States (1.7%) and the European Union (1.6%) in 2023.”

With such growth, China is likely to have passed the American GERD last year.

In the OECD – a group of most of the world’s wealthiest countries – in 2023 R&D expenditure grew by 2.4% in inflation-adjusted terms, down from 3.6% in 2022.

The OECD used purchasing power parity-adjusted US dollars, “the standard method for international macroeconomic comparisons”. It says China remains considerably behind the US if R&D is measured in US dollars at market exchange rates – 49% in 2003 against 42% in 2013.

What might a new science leader mean for science? Gluckman told University World News that it is positive in the sense that science is continuing to be valued by one of the major powers with global influence.

However, “It’s unfortunate that scientific collaboration is being fractured by geopolitical considerations because the very areas where we need science to protect the global commons require international science cooperation. Sadly, geo-strategic issues are getting confused with the need for science to address global issues.”

One of the growing roles of the Paris-based International Science Council (ISC) is “brokering the voice and knowledge of the scientific community to the whole multilateral system”, said Gluckman, who is also a distinguished professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and directs the Koi T centre for Informed Futures, a policy-focused independent think-tank focused on long-term issues.

The ISC has more than 230 member organisations in over 140 countries, such as the National Academy of Sciences in the US and the Chinese Association of Science and Technology.

Concerned that there should be greater efforts to collaborate in defence of science and humanities research during a difficult time, and yet ensuring that the global research community should not shoot itself in the foot, Gluckman told a UNESCO Global Ministerial Dialogue on Science and Diplomacy held on 25 March:

“We need a more united voice. We are seeing lots of people putting pegs in the ground of science diplomacy but institutional egos are getting in the way of a common agenda and collaboration.

“At times, we see too much institutional competition and counterproductive tension rather than collaboration across the landscape, especially between governmental and non-governmental sectors in promoting science to address global issues. We need to look to ourselves and see what we can do better.”

China’s rising science ‘no surprise’

It has been clear for the last decade at least that China has been very serious about science. Visiting China last year, Gluckman witnessed high-quality science education in schools and universities and museums and “obvious leadership commitment to science and technology”.

There has been a strategic purpose to the government’s commitment to R&D, which is to grow a richer country. Scientists and engineers are included among the top leadership.

“It’s a mistake for the West to think that China does not do world-class science – it does, and at scale. China’s building an infrastructure of young people in the workforce and very good universities. They’ve always had great depth in some areas, but it’s expanding remarkably,” Gluckman said.

China research is especially strong in sustainability, the digital space and the life sciences. “Why should anybody be surprised that China is about to become the largest and most serious investor in science at the very time when the American scientific enterprise is struggling for political reasons.”

Higher education falling behind

The OECD data show that business R&D spending continued to outpace other sectors, growing at 2.7% in 2023 when it accounted for a whopping 74% of GERD across OECD countries, up from 66% in 2010.

“R&D in government sector institutions grew by 2.5%, while R&D in the higher education sector saw a more modest increase of 1.7%,” says the statistical release.

It is difficult to generalise, as countries are very different from each other, Gluckman said. But it is known that the private sector is increasing its amount of R&D work – even in basic discovery science – at least in North America.

While digital technologies have been primed originally by university research, now it is moving at a very early stage into the private sector.

There have been spin-offs and people leaving universities for the private sector, said Gluckman, “particularly in rapidly growing tech areas – deep tech, AI, quantum, and some of the life sciences areas like synthetic biology”.

Among reasons for the low research spending growth rate in universities are that university costs are rising relative to inflation, deviation of focus as a result of COVID, utilitarian pressures from governments for universities to produce more graduates, and government funding for university research being squeezed.

“There’s been gradual change over some time, even without considering the recent and changed global circumstances as a result of the US political changes,” said Gluckman.

“In both the United States and elsewhere in the Western world, research systems are being battered by politics,” he added.

More stats

In the European Union, the big economies slowed the region’s overall growth in R&D spending, says the OECD release.

“Germany’s R&D rose by 0.8%, while France’s fell by 0.5%. In contrast, R&D in Spain and Poland increased by over 8%.” In Japan (2.7%) and Korea (3.7%) R&D growth exceeded the OECD average.

Digging down further into GERD by research-performing sector, the United States maintains its lead on China in the business and higher education sectors, “where China now reaches 95% and 74% of the US level, respectively. In the government sector, China’s R&D expenditure is 1.6 times that of the United States.

The OECD also looked at research intensity, an adjusted measure of domestic spending on research expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product.

R&D intensity in the OECD area has remained unchanged at 2.7% since 2020. For the 27 countries of the European Union, intensity was also constant at 2.1%.

“Among OECD countries, Israel and Korea continued to report the highest levels of R&D intensity, at 6.3% and 5.0% of GDP, respectively. R&D intensity in China stood at 2.6% in 2023, approaching OECD area levels.”

Gluckman noted: “But overall, the headiness of growth in public research has slowed down.” In Europe the future direction of the massive Horizon research programme is uncertain.

There is a more utilitarian approach in general to investments in R&D, Gluckman says, moving away from fundamentals towards more applied research.

“And not only Europe, but also Australia, New Zealand, Singapore. It’s a broad phenomenon for a whole raft of reasons in the post-COVID slowdown.”

Research fields

Looking at the orientation of government R&D budgets for the OECD area, the data showed a drop in investments in health after COVID-19. Support for energy and the environment (US$ 42.6 billion) and defence (US$ 107.7 billion) rose by 29.1% and 16.1%, said the OECD release.

“Pragmatically, science has always been driven by countries’ national defence and security interests,” said Gluckman, and in this time of geopolitical upheaval in very many countries, including the traditional liberal democracies, defence spending, including on research, will only increase.

“We’ve got to be realistic. There’s always been a disproportionate focus of science on defence. The trick is that we’ve got to get countries to understand that it’s equally in their national interest to look after the global commons, climate change, etcetera, as it is to worry about defence interests.”

“The reality is that nearly everybody agrees we need to work together to protect the global commons, but we are failing because the multilateral system is failing, the geopolitical tensions are high, and sharing data and information is more constrained,” said Gluckman.

The politics of research

In a bizarre way, he suggested, recent events may help people outside the US to realise they have common interests. But America remains one of the two scientific superpowers. “We need the remarkable resource that is US science properly engaged in the world,” he said.

“The reality is that international science is at great risk at the present time, not just because of the funding attitude or the instructions from the American administration, but also because scientists themselves are scared – scared to interact or not be able to interact,” Gluckman noted.

“It’s tragic that scientists are worrying about going to a scientific meeting in America because there might be a tweet or something on their cell phone that could get them in trouble.

“But whatever’s going on in the United States at the moment, this has been building for a number of years, and it’s been building outside America as much as inside,” he added.

Gluckman worries that tariffs and resulting economic challenges will give every government an opportunity to constrain public spending further.

He believes that one of two things will happen. Certainly, growth in science expenditure will be limited in the public good area.”

There might also be a drive, as is happening in Europe, for more support for downstream innovation and reduced investment in fundamental research. In some countries, economic problems could lead to an absolute cut in the science budget.

“Who knows what the tariff war will bring? But I think public good science could have a really rough ride in the next two years,” he noted.

Email Karen MacGregor: macgregor.karen@gmail.com.