China's emerging presence in nanoscience and nanotechnology - A comparative bibliometric study of several nanoscience 'giants'

This paper aims to provide an integrated bibliometric analysis of the knowledge base of nanoscience and nanotechnology in the Chinese research community. For comparative purposes, the results are benchmarked against the findings from four other major nations: France, Germany, Japan, and the USA. It is found that China is productive in nanoscience as far as publication activity is concerned. The analyses of collaboration and institutional patterns enable us to identify the active collaborative networks and productive research institutions among the five countries. Finally, analysis of the citation share and certain surrogate indicators shows that the Chinese scientific community needs to work on improving its research impact. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.