Shanghai ranks No.2 in research contributions

Shanghai placed second on a list of cities that have contributed the most to China's rapid scientific expansion, according to rankings published Wednesday in a supplement to the journal Nature.

Beijing held on to its top spot on The Nature Publishing Index 2012 China, which based its ranking on the number of articles Chinese institutions published last year in the 18 journals under the Nature Publishing Group.

Hefei, Anhui Province; Hong Kong and Wuhan, Hubei Province were the other top-five cities on the list.

Researchers based in China contributed to 303 research papers published in Nature's journals in 2012, according to the index. They accounted for 8.5 percent of the total last year, up from 7 percent in 2011 and 5.3 percent in 2010.

China's contributions to Nature's journals have grown gradually since 2000, when only six articles published in Nature's journals had coauthors from Chinese research institutions.

In Nature's rankings of those institutions, Shanghai Jiao Tong University came in fifth after Tsinghua University and Peking University in Beijing.

Nature Publishing Group's parent company, Macmillan Publishers, has set up a new regional office in Shanghai and signed an agreement with the Shanghai Association for Science & Technology to stimulate international cooperation in science and technology and promote Chinese scientists around the world.