UUKi and the British Council consolidate what we know about UK-China research partnerships

More than one quarter of the world’s research takes place in China. The country is a leader in many leading and emerging research fields. And its research success is not only entwined with the research success of the UK but in solving some of the world’s biggest economic, environmental, and technological challenges.

A new report by UUKi and the British Council, The Chinese Research Landscape, makes clear that the country is all in on strengthening their research capabilities. Research is the tool through which the country forms, strengthens, and loosens international partnerships, it is the route to gaining economic dominance in areas like semi-conductors, and it is the means through which China is aiming to secure technological self sufficiency.

The relative levels of investment in R&D, including a commitment to a 7 per cent year on year spending increase, makes the UK look small by comparison. The strength of the UK is that by any reasonable international measure it is brilliant at research despite being several factors smaller than its international rivals. This allows the UK to operate in the same research orbit as the US and China who are key collaborators with the UK and key collaborators with each other.

Understandably, this tri-partite relationship is difficult. China is both a competitor to the UK, the Strategic Defence Review called the country a “sophisticated and persistent challenge,” but it is a key collaborator in some of the areas that are sources of sophisticated and persistent challenges. As we learn in the report:

AI is currently the 9th greatest individual topic for UK-China collaboration, with an averaged Field Weighted Citations Impact (FWCI) factor of 2.1, in comparison to 1.64 for UK-only papers in the field, in keeping with the higher citation factor common with collaborative research. The total percentage of UK-China collaborations within the UK’s total output in the field has also risen from 16% in 2018 to 24% in 2024, having grown steadily year on year.

The areas where the UK and China enjoy some of their deepest collaborations, like in Engineering and Computer Science, are also the areas where the UK has the broadest challenges in securing global economic advantages to grow its economy at home and further its security interest abroad.

Despite its global important there is limited understanding of China’s research ecosystem within the UK. Where collaboration is taking place, and there is some optimism of an opening up in some areas, it is covered by an increasingly complex set of laws and regulations. This is only made more complex by differing regulatory approaches between China and the UK. For example, China’s Military-Civil Fusion policy allows technologies developed in civilian universities to be adopted for economic and miliary development.

The era of growing economic and research dominance by China is not coming to an end soon. From time to time it may be challenged by tariffs, regulations, and political fallings out, but each set back only furthers the Chinese government’s commitment to technological independence.

Reports like this are useful not because they tell the sector what to do but because they make it clear that something must be done.