A Comparative Study On Funded Publications Of China And The USA In Physics

As the global economy transfers from the resource-based era to the knowledge-based era, the competition of the national power among countries is in effect a competition of their knowledge power. Therefore, it becomes a basic national strategy for developing as well as developed countries to increase their investment in scientific research. At present, the system of science foundation, which has exerted a significant positive impact on the theoretical research of the basic disciplines, is one of the most effective and widely applied means to support the activities of scientific research and technological development worldwide. By adopting the method of literature metrology, taking Web of Science as the data source, thus obtaining papers in the field of physics subsidized by Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Natural Science Foundation (NSF) of the U.S., based on an analytical study on the productivity (number of papers), the influence (citation frequency) and the distribution of research subjects, and conducted as an exploratory research on enhancing the efficiency of the financial aid and expanding the influence of cooperation, this thesis tries to make a contrast between the condition of research in the physics domain subsidized by NSFC and that subsidized by NSF, describes the similarities and differences in the quantity and quality of financial aids offered to the same field of study by the two science foundations respectively, and probe the research hotspots in the physics field subsidized by each of the two science foundations.One of the findings of this comparative research shows that, despite the ample productivity of papers, there still exists a little gap between the quality of the papers subsidized by NSFC and that of the papers subsidized by NSF. When subsidizing projects of scientific studies, NSF involves a wide range of funding institutions, which are more international and have closer relation with the scientific and even military institutions. This provides better international resources for the papers it subsidizes, promotes the international collaboration in research, and enhances their influence simultaneously. Another finding of the research demonstrates that the scope of research NSFC subsidizes focuses on three hottest directions in the field of physics, while that NSF subsidizes is relatively better balanced, which helps to exert the power of science foundation, promote the healthy development of the field of physics, and comprehensively raise the international influence within the physics field.