Scientific articles
Raw research output. Europe still publishes heavily, but China now leads on volume.
Where Europe stands now
Scientific articles
Raw research output. Europe still publishes heavily, but China now leads the world on volume.
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EU vs US vs China vs D9+ over time
Published per year
The story
Raw research output is the one race Europe has not lost: the EU still publishes around 600,000 scientific and technical articles a year, well ahead of the United States. But China now publishes close to 900,000, and its lead is growing. The frontier of written science has moved east while the debate still assumes it sits west.
Why it matters
Publications are the top of the innovation funnel. Volume alone is not leadership, but no region has ever converted science it did not produce. If Europe's output share erodes, everything downstream, patents, spin-outs, frontier firms, erodes with a lag.
Policy context
Europe's problem is not producing science; it is converting it. That is why this metric is context rather than a headline indicator: it explains why the commercialisation gap, not the research gap, is where European policy has the most to win.
How this number is calculated
Source & cadence
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