【双语阅读】研究:中国高被引论文超半数引用者为本国人

文摘   2024-10-25 18:47   北京  

Chinese researchers are more likely than their overseas peers to cite academic papers produced in their own country, with nearly two-thirds of the citations for China’s most-cited papers in recent years coming from domestic papers, recent studies showed.

One study from Japan’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) found 62% of the citations that referenced China’s top 10% most cited papers from 2020 to 2022 were in papers authored by Chinese scholars. A parallel study from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich reached a similar conclusion, adding that China’s global research ranking appears lower when the size of domestic citations is “debiased.”

本国偏好现象在引文领域相当常见,据《科学》新闻近期报道,今年的两项研究显示,中国在本国偏好方面表现尤其突出。其中一项来自日本国家科学技术政策研究所的研究显示,在中国被引率最高的前10%的论文中,超过一半的引用来自本国学者。另一项德国慕尼黑大学(LMU)的研究得出了类似的结论,且发现在剔除本国偏好因素之后,中国的全球研究排名低于最初看上去的水平。


After China, the NISTEP report found the United States was in second place with 24% of citations referencing the most-cited U.S. papers coming from the same country. Other nations had various rates, such as the U.K.’s 8% and France’s 6%.

The research conducted by Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich found that 57% of citations for Chinese papers published in the top 10% of academic publications between 2000 and 2021 came from within the country. The U.S. ranked second at 37%.

The studies were quoted in an article published by the U.S. academic journal Science in September, which shed light on concerns over whether the high proportion of same-country citations could skew global research rankings.

In 2022, China rose to become the most-cited country — a key measure of research impact and recognition, beating the U.S., according to separate NISTEP research. In 2023, China contributed 118,500 “high-level international journal papers,” accounting for 33.6% of the global total, according to a report released by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China last month.

近年来,中国一跃成为全球论文被引率的第一名。中国科学技术信息研究所近日发布《2024年中国科技论文统计报告》显示,中国各学科最具影响力期刊论文数量、高水平国际期刊论文数量及被引用次数,继续保持世界第一位。该报告提到,2023年共有384种国际科技期刊入选世界各学科代表性科技期刊,发表高水平国际期刊论文35.25万篇。按第一作者、第一单位统计分析的结果显示,中国发表高水平国际期刊论文11.85万篇,占世界总量的33.6%,被引用次数为81.89万次,论文发表数量和被引用次数均排在世界第一位。


The same Chinese report showed that the average citation number received by Chinese researchers’ international papers in the past decade, 16.2 times per paper, surpassed the global average of 15.76 for the first time in 2023.

The NISTEP showed that Chinese papers are also being increasingly cited by researchers based in the U.S. and Europe. The institute’s analyst Murakami Akiyoshi told Science that this suggests China is doing “highly impactful research,” the article said.

Another analyst quoted by Science said some Chinese institutions have adopted “a strategic focus” on publishing in influential journals.

分析者给出了中国在论文引用方面表现出较强本国偏好的几个原因。日本广岛大学高等教育研究开发中心副主任黄福涛认为,原因之一是中国的研究人员正在创造越来越多的高质量工作;此外,许多中国科研机构有计划地调整了战略重点,即在影响力较大的期刊上发表文章,这得到了科研工作者们的更多关注。


But practices such as “citation stacking” where researchers cite unrelated works to inflate citation counts of colleagues and institutions may also be prevalent, the article added.

Fudan University professor Tang Li noted that China’s relational culture, along other factors, may have fostered “China’s high level of internal citations,” according to the Science article.

复旦大学国际关系与公共事务学院公共行政系教授唐莉则表示,“中国研究人员的数量正在迅速增长”,他们对本国的科研发展趋势有了更为清晰的认识。唐莉补充说,中国还存在一种关系文化,即相互支持,“这些因素相互作用,促成了中国高水平的内部引用。”

还有一些更为隐蔽的操作也促成了中国的论文明显的本国偏好。在一种被称为“引文堆砌”的策略中,科学家引用与其研究几乎毫无关联的工作,以提高同事论文和所属机构的被引数量。引文堆砌的作者希望同事能够回报他们,亦希望从机构提高的声望中获益。


Claudia Steinwender, one of the three authors of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich study, said that it’s not surprising to see that large countries have a high proportion of same-country citations because there are many “potentially citing researchers.”

However, after Steinwender and her colleagues adjusted for this apparent bias, China’s ranking on a list of countries most-cited by articles published in top journals from 2000 to 2021 dropped from second to fourth globally, behind the U.S., the U.K. and Germany.

斯坦温德认为,较高的国内引用率并不令人惊讶,“大国自然会有很大比例的本国引用,因为有很多潜在的引用研究人员。”从经济学视角来看,本国倾向也是国际贸易的一个特点——国家优先消费本国生产的商品,而较大的国家受到的影响更大。斯坦温德的研究团队试图了解中国的规模(以总出版物和总引用量衡量)是如何影响其引用模式的。

在纠正了本国偏好带来的数据影响后,中国在2000—2021年间顶级期刊论文引用总量排名中从第二位下降至第四位,落后于美国、英国和德国。


Writing by Kelly Wang

Editing by Joshua Dummer




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