For the first time, China has come out on top in the number of most cited papers, a key measure of research impact, the Science magazine has recently reported.

"The milestone provides fresh evidence that China's scholarship, known for its burgeoning quantity, is catching up in quality as well," the report said, citing a Japanese institute.

For the new report, Japan's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) tallied the top 1 percent papers in terms of citations, a rarified stratum inhabited by many Nobel laureates.

Using a method called "fractional counting," NISTEP certified that China accounted for 27.2 percent of the most cited papers published in 2018, 2019, and 2020, compared with 24.9 percent for the United States.

China's rising production of top-cited papers is "remarkable," said NISTEP, noting that two decades ago it only ranked 13th in the fractional counting metric. 

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