Since 2019, the Science and Technology Strategic Consulting Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission publish jointly the “Global Urban Basic Frontier Research Monitoring Index”, trying to monitor basic frontier research at the national, regional and city level. According to the 2020 report, China now ranks second in the world, following the USA and followed by Britain, Germany and Japan. The gap between China and the United States in terms of research frontiers and breakthrough results is relatively small, but there is still a huge gap between China and the United States in terms of high-end talents. Among the TOP20 cities in the world, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Hefei ranked 3rd, 7th, 9th and 16th respectively, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York ranked first, fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively. London ranked second, and Tokyo ranked tenth.
China Science Daily news, January 26, 2021