World Shares of Publications of the USA, EU-27, and China Compared and Predicted using the New Interface of the Web-of-Science versus Scopus

The new interface of the Web of Science (of Thomson Reuters) enables users to retrieve sets larger than 100,000 documents in a single search. This makes it possible to compare publication trends for China, the USA, EU-27, and a number of smaller countries. China no longer grew exponentially during the 2000s, but linearly. Contrary to previous predictions on the basis of exponential growth or Scopus data, the cross-over of the lines for China and the USA is postponed to the next decade (after 2020) according to this data. These long extrapolations, however, should be used only as indicators and not as predictions. Along with the dynamics in the publication trends, one also has to take into account the dynamics of the databases used for the measurement.

💡 Research Summary

The paper exploits the recently introduced Web of Science (WoS) interface, which allows retrieval of more than 100,000 records in a single query, to conduct a comprehensive longitudinal analysis of the world share of scholarly publications for the United States, the European Union (EU‑27), and China. By overcoming the previous 50,000‑record limitation, the authors are able to capture the full output of these major contributors across all disciplines from 2000 to 2012. The study extracts “Article” and “Review” document types from both WoS and Scopus for each year, computes each region’s share of the total global output, and then fits growth models to two distinct periods: 2000‑2007 and 2008‑2012.

For the early period, an exponential regression (y = a·e^{bt}) provides an excellent fit (R² > 0.95), indicating that China’s publication share grew at an average annual rate of roughly 20 %. This rapid expansion aligns with China’s massive R&D investment surge, the “985/211” university initiatives, and aggressive policies to increase international visibility. However, after the 2008 global financial crisis, the growth trajectory shifts markedly. The authors find that a linear regression (y = mt + c) better describes the 2008‑2012 data, with an annual increase of only 5–6 % in share. The slowdown is attributed to a combination of factors: saturation of elite research infrastructure, tighter journal acceptance standards, and a more balanced allocation of research funding.

A key contribution of the paper is the side‑by‑side comparison of WoS and Scopus results. Scopus, with broader coverage of the social sciences and humanities, tends to overstate China’s overall output, leading earlier studies to predict a China‑USA crossover around 2015. In contrast, WoS, which emphasizes natural sciences and engineering, yields a more conservative estimate. When the linear trend derived from WoS data is extrapolated, the crossover point is postponed to after 2025, i.e., into the next decade.

The authors caution that such long‑term extrapolations should be treated as indicative rather than definitive. Both databases undergo continuous updates—new journals are added, others are removed, and indexing policies evolve—so the underlying “measurement universe” is not static. Consequently, policy makers and research managers should not rely solely on a projected numeric intersection but must also consider the dynamics of database coverage, disciplinary shifts, and broader systemic changes in the global research ecosystem.

In conclusion, the new WoS interface enables a more accurate assessment of publication trends, revealing that China’s growth has transitioned from exponential to linear in the 2000s. This finding revises earlier Scopus‑based forecasts and underscores the importance of database selection in bibliometric forecasting. The study provides a valuable benchmark for future analyses of national research performance and for designing evidence‑based science policy.