Shanghai, March 18, 2015, — The Nature Index 2014 China, published by Nature, surveyed the contribution of the main Chinese scientific institutes and universities to global scientific development, the top ten cities in scientific output, and the status of international scientific collaboration. In the Index, the chapter on Shanghai reports the outstanding contribution of Fudan University in the scientific field.
Prof. Xu Ningsheng was recently named President of Fudan University(file photo).
The top 10 leading cities for high-quality science output in China include Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hong Kong, Changchun, Wuhan, Hefei, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Tianjin.
It is reported that Fudan is Shanghai’s premier institution of higher education and has the highest WFC (‘Weighted Fractional Count’, a measure of the relative contributions of an institution to the papers it has published) among all institutions in the city. In 2013, Fudan University published 255 articles (WFC = 129.2), including three (WFC = 0.8) in Nature and Science.
The report stresses the contribution of Fudan in chemistry, particularly in materials chemistry. Professor Peng Huisheng from the Department of Chemistry is the greatest contributor, with nine articles (WFC = 8.6), accounting for more than ten percent of Fudan’s output in this field. Professor Peng has developed composite nanofibres that can be woven into paper-thin capacitors, or used in flexible lithium batteries. “These materials perform like conventional planar batteries but are flexible and wearable. Such batteries might one day be used to power electronics in jackets and clothes”, says Professor Peng.
Other major contributors from the same department include Zhao Dongyuan, Wang Zhongsheng and Wu Yuping. Each of these researchers published three to five articles in a range of chemistry journals. Notably, one of Professor Wu’s papers in the journal Nano Letters, entitled “LiMn2O4 Nanotube as Cathode Material of Second-level Charge Capability for Aqueous Rechargeable Batteries”, was listed as one of China’s 100 most influential academic papers in 2013 by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China.
The highest individual WFCs in life sciences at Fudan are contributed by Xu Yanhui and Lei Qunying. Professor Xu published to three articles (WFC = 2.5), including one in Cell. Professor Lei’s three articles (WFC = 2.3) were on the molecular mechanisms behind several biological processes, including lipid biosynthesis, tumor growth and cancer development.
The report points out that Shanghai, the most populous city in China, has undergone rapid expansion and economic transformation over the past few decades. In 2013, the metropolis in China spent US$12 billion (3.4% of its gross domestic product, GDP) on research, and signed 9,274 technology transfer agreements — eighty-six percent of which were for electronic data services, biopharmaceuticals and advanced materials. Innovation-based industries are now responsible for forty percent of the city’s GDP.
Shanghai is home to 68 universities, 58 research institutes, 328 hospitals, and 400 joint venture or foreign-owned research centers. Of these, 63 institutions (including thirteen institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS) are represented in the Nature Index. Nearly one-third of Shanghai’s research output is in the life sciences — a greater proportion than the national average. Overall, the major contributing institutions are Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), East China Normal University (ECNU), East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), Tongji University, and the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (part of CAS), each of which contributes between six and eighteen percent of the city’s WFC.