More money heading for scientific research

More government support will be provided to increase the output and impact of research produced by Chinese scientists, a science foundation official said.

Investment in scientific research will reach $6 billion by 2020, equal to the United States, said Gao Wen, deputy director of the National Natural Science Foundation of China at a news conference on Tuesday.

The foundation allocates funds to research projects — especially fundamental research — under the State Council, China's cabinet.

This year marks the foundation's 30th anniversary. Gao said the foundation's investment in scientific research has increased 300-fold, from 80 million yuan ($12 million) when it was established in 1986 to 24.8 billion yuan in 2016. Continued growth is expected.

"By investing more in scientific research, we hope the gap between China and other developed countries will be narrowed," he said.

That's one goal of the foundation in the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20). Others include improving the quantity and quality of academic papers by Chinese scientists so that more are cited.

From 2005 to 2015, academic papers written by Chinese scientists and researchers were cited almost 13 million times, ranking fourth internationally.

"We hope that by 2020, China will rise to second place, trailing only the US," Gao said.

To achieve the goals, Gao said, certain difficulties must be overcome, including issues of academic integrity and credibility. Lack of creativity and innovation is another problem, he said.

"We should be patient about this, and the whole society should be more tolerant of failure, as it takes a long time to nurture innovative talent and conduct creative research," Gao said.