The China Academy of Science (CAS) released on Wednesday reports on research fronts and hotspots in 2025, indicating that China has ranked first in six research frontier fields within this year.
The 2025 Research Fronts report tracks global scientific literature and citation patterns to identify 110 research hotspots and 18 emerging fronts in 11 major highly integrated disciplinary fields, offering an objective reflection of their development status. On the basis of the 2025 Research Fronts report, the 2025 Research Fronts Heat Index report measures the global research activity in the 11 fields, as well as contributions and influences of major countries and regions therein.
According to the index, China ranked the world's first in six research frontiers including agricultural science, botany and zoology, ecology and environmental science, chemistry and materials science, physics, information science, economics and psychology.
In an interview with China Media Group (CMG), Pan Jiaofeng, president of the Institute of Science and Development under the CAS, noted that ranking underscored China's strong research foundations and active exploration in the related fields.
"Judged from the two reports released this year, it can be perceived that the quality of basic research in China is steadily improving. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), we definitely need to attach great importance to the huge impact that artificial intelligence will generate on the transformation of scientific research paradigms, and also pay great attention to the application of artificial intelligence in all fields. To bring into play the capability of artificial intelligence can help us produce high-quality results," he said.
China ranks first in 6 hotspot fields in research frontiers: reports
