China?s rise in science has the potential to push forward the knowledge frontier, but mere production of knowledge does not guarantee that others are able to build on it. We ask whether chemistry research originating from China offers broad shoulders for follow-on scientists to stand on. We show that even after carefully controlling for the quality of Chinese research, Chinese scientists? articles receive on average 28% fewer citations from US researchers, relative to scientists from other countries. Only Chinese researchers with unusually deep networks in the US can overcome, at least in part, the citation discount.

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1 January 2025

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Research Policy 54(1) 2025

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DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2024.105147

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733324001963

This Journal article is published under the centre's Trade programme.