中国科技期刊艰难发展的幕后故事

The fast-growing economy has had one unintended consequence: Scientists must pay more if they want to get published in international journals, which no longer consider China a low-income country.

For example, US online publication PLoS One charges Chinese researchers as much as $1,350 per article, a standard fee for contributors from the United States and Europe.

In comparison, it charges nothing for papers submitted from low-income countries such as Afghanistan, Cambodia and Ethiopia, while charging $500 for lower-middle-income countries such as India, Cuba and Egypt, in accordance with a country's per capita GDP and investment in science and technology.

Many other international journals do not recognize China as a developing economy.

Li Jing, a Chinese researcher working in Finland, used his blog to call on Chinese scientists to boycott PLoS One - and more than 60 scientists signed up to protest the fees.

However, the nation's scientists believe the ultimate solution lies closer to home.

Wu Yishan, deputy director of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, said: "Although China produced 168,000 sci-tech papers in 2012 - the second highest number in the world - the vast majority of these papers are published in foreign journals, because our domestic sci-tech publications are far less influential than foreign publications. There are several excellent journals in China, but the number is too small. Most first-class papers go to foreign journals, because the author wants the recognition of the international science community," Wu said.

"China needs better science journals to provide a better platform for our own scientists."

The institute, under the Ministry of Science and Technology, is designed to provide decision-making support to government agencies and keep the science and technology community up to date.

In 2000, only 47 of China's sci-tech publications were included in the Science Citation Index published by Thomson Reuters, which covers the world's most notable and significant journals across 100 disciplines.

By 2011, the number had increased to 155, accounting for 1.9 percent of all SCI journals.

Journals: Rapid increase in sci-tech papers

At the same time, the number of China's sci-tech papers increased. Between 2001 and 2011, Chinese scientists published 836,300 international papers. In 2010 alone, they authored 121,500 international papers.

"This number is still too small compared with the total output of papers in China," Wu said.

As of 2011, only 20 percent of China's SCI papers were published in domestic journals. The rest went to foreign journals.

Wu said the most obvious reason for China's sci-tech journals lagging behind is language.

"In the United Nations, you may have different working languages, but in the international science community, English is the de facto working language," he said.

Out of more than 5,000 domestic sci-tech journals in China, about 200 are published in English.

"The percentage of China's journals in English is far lower than that of Poland, Hungary, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and many other countries," Wu said.

Nevertheless, Wu blames too much government intervention for hampering the development of science journals.

"In recent years, very few sci-tech journals were approved, sometimes fewer than 10 a year, due to strict scrutiny by the General Administration of Press and Publication.

"If it (the administration) just stops restraining the total number of journals, ... good sci-tech journals will survive in a competitive market and bad journals will be eliminated."

Wu also said most of China's sci-tech journals are run by inexperienced managers.

"Some world-famous publishers have 30 percent profit margins, but most of China's academic journals hardly make money," Wu said.