Bao Zhenan (right), here instructing a student in her Stanford University lab, is among Chinese-born scientists gaining international recognition through published peer-reviewed research. Chen Jia / China Daily

Collaboration and peer review have contributed to a growing respect for Chinese scientists among counterparts abroad, China Daily's Chen Jia reports from California.

Turning China into a leader in science and technology is a long-term goal, but Chinese in the intensely competitive field are already advancing - in the form of respect among international peers.

"Chinese scientists are among the brightest and most talented scientific force in the world," said Richard Zhao, a co-director of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America, which has 2,500 members from academia, medicine and business.

He credits China's increased openness and improved educational system over the past 30 years.

Before its formation in 1984, future members of the biochemists group helped draft an exam and admissions program to let qualified Chinese students into the physics departments of some US and Canadian universities. About 900 Chinese took part in the 1979-89 initiative, which led to comprehensive cross-border enrollment programs.

Chinese scientists who return home after studying abroad are also crucial in expanding their country's base of expertise, by passing on their "advanced" training and education in developed countries to succeeding generations, said Zhao, who is also a professor of pathology at the University of Maryland medical school and head of the university hospital's molecular diagnostics lab.

Bao Zhenan, 42, is a US resident whose accomplishments in science (more than 280 referred publications and 50 patents) have made her a rising star in the eyes of peers and even local media. Three of her research papers, about an ultra-thin synthetic material, were published by the journal Nature Nanotechnology between 2010 and 2012.

"My research group has developed a skinlike synthetic material that heals itself in 30 minutes if torn or cut," said Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University since 2004. The findings could eventually be applied to medical treatments or the development of new touch screens for digital devices.

Her father, Bao Ximao, was a physicist at Nanjing University. Bao Zhenan had completed most of her coursework toward a bachelor's degree at that school by the time she and her family immigrated to the US in 1990.

Her ties to China remain strong, however. With Bao's help, many Nanjing University scholars have participated in US exchange programs over the years. A key member of her Stanford research team is a Chinese doctoral student who used to attend the tech-intensive Tsinghua University.

Outside the lab, Bao is a partner in a Silicon Valley startup backed by GSR Ventures, a Beijing-based venture capital firm that invests in technology companies with substantial operations in China.

University-level outreach has been driven by China's central government. The National Medium and Long-Term Talent Development Plan (2010-20) outlines priorities to improve the highly skilled work force through policies on taxation, insurance, housing, career development, research and awards for foreign-educated Chinese.

Under the plan, Beijing in 2008 launched Thousand Talents, aimed at building China's capacity within 10 years by encouraging highly educated Chinese to return home for high-paying, prestigious jobs in their fields. A follow-up, Thousand Young Talents, is designed to bring some 2,000 graduates from abroad to work in natural sciences or engineering in China.

Investment in research and development nearly tripled between 2000 and 2005, according to the China Association for Science and Technology. A 2006 report by the National Science Foundation, a federal agency that funds US institutions' research, called China's stepped-up R&D spending "unprecedented for any country in recent memory".

Government support for scientific research and development is "essential" to innovation in any country, said Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the journal Science.

"Since 1999, China's investment in science has grown 10 times faster, as a share of its economy, than the US investment in science," he said. "China's leaders clearly recognize the connection between increased government support for science and the discoveries that drive economic prosperity."

Leshner said China's science and technology communities appear to grasp the value of international collaboration in researching potential remedies for global pandemics, hunger and climate change.

"China seems enthusiastic about leveraging science to solve such problems, which requires the best minds from many countries working together to promote discovery," he said.

Collaboration has both guided and benefited from China's emphasis on science and scientific education. It also serves as a testing ground for the national policy goals - namely in the rigorous area of peer review.

Increasingly, research papers authored or co-authored by Chinese scientists are gaining respect among their counterparts abroad.

According to the respected 133-year-old journal, Science in 2012 published 81 original research papers by authors whose country of origin was China. That's up from 76 papers by Chinese-born authors in 2011 and 70 in 2010.

Only 8 percent of original research submitted to Science is selected for publication. (Its content is about 60 percent biological sciences and 40 percent physical sciences.) According to the journal, about 12,500 papers were submitted in each of the past two years.

Science accepts work from academics and professional scientists around the world - two of every five papers published in the weekly journal have a primary author from outside the US - after it has been checked by similarly qualified experts on the topic. Each peer-reviewed submission is evaluated by relevant specialists on the journal's board of reviewing editors, as well as one or two outside consultants; about a quarter of all submissions get a further, in-depth review by two additional scientists. The board of editors includes Ke Lu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

According to another venerable journal, the UK-published Nature, researchers with ties to China are becoming more prominent in the world of peer review.

"Although the United States is still the leading producer of highly cited research articles, our data show that China is fast closing the gap and is on course to overtake Germany and the United Kingdom by 2014," said Charlotte Liu, China managing director for scientific publications at Nature publisher Macmillan, which is owned by Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH.

According to a breakdown of the 1 percent of research papers in Nature most frequently cited by other scientists in 2011, China-based authors accounted for 11.3 percent. That was fourth - behind the US (50.7 percent), Germany (14.5 percent) and the UK (14.3 percent) - but far ahead of the 1.9 percent from China just 10 years earlier.

Chinese scientists, or those affiliated with an institution in China, contributed 366 articles to Nature and Nature-branded publications in 2012, up from 273 the previous year.

While the quantity of peer-reviewed research from China has increased, so has the quality, said Liu, who credits the advent of national reforms in education, consolidation of research institutions, greater sophistication of scientists and increased R&D investment.

The return of Western-educated Chinese scientists has helped, she said, particularly those who have honed their English-writing skills through exchanges or collaboration.

Nature Publishing Group has conducted seminars at institutions in China on how to get published in its journals, as well as tutorials on writing scientific papers, Liu said.

Collaboration is two-way, as is its impact. The Nature executive said Chinese-trained scientists in the West have worked with her company as writers, reviewers and editors.

"A lack of basic research in China decades ago meant they had little choice but to go west to advance their research careers. We're delighted to see that this one-way movement has become a much healthier, balanced two-way communication."

NPG in recent years has launched region-specific niche publications in Asia. It co-publishes the Chinese edition of Scientific American, Huanqiu Kexue ("global science" ).

Talented Chinese graduate students still flock to top Western universities, but now opportunities at home beckon. Some elite researchers have returned to run labs and institutes in China, heightening interaction with the diaspora of Chinese scientists abroad. This dynamic exchange of ideas, people and projects will get stronger, experts say.

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science, CEO and Science executive publisher Leshner said the journal has enlarged its pool of contributors through cooperation with the China Association for Science and Technology. He cited a 2007 trip by officials of Washington-based AAAS to Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou to set up a foundation to handle joint projects.

"AAAS has long had a news-reporting presence in China and, like so many journal publishers, we are investigating options for increasing our activities in China in the future," Leshner said.

Although Chinese researchers have occasionally run afoul of the scientific community for producing dubious work, Leshner said such incidents should be kept in perspective.

"Instances of scientific misconduct, plagiarism and fraud are a concern worldwide, not just in China," he said. "There is a need for globally consistent ethical standards across the scientific community, as well as uniform training programs for the next generation of scientists and engineers."

He described as "encouraging" ethics workshops conducted in China with input from the AAAS as a way to raise awareness of the need for high standards and best practices among researchers. In September, members of the US association took part in a China Association for Science and Technology seminar at Zheijiang University in Hangzhou. The seminar, which was co-sponsored by the US National Science Foundation, addressed plagiarism, conflicts of interest, and authorship and publication issues.

The seminar was part of a joint project to develop cross-cultural case studies for research-ethics education in the US and China, said Mark Frankel, who directs AAAS' Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law program. "Scientific communication is essential for engaging the public in the science and technology issues that increasingly affect all of our lives," he said.

Wang Xiaofan, a US citizen who is president of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America and a reviewer for several international scientific journals, would like more American researchers to visit China.

"Personal interaction will change the reputation," said Wang, who came to the US in the early 1980s and used to teach in the pharmacology and cancer biology department at Duke University's medical school.

Three years ago, he and a former mentor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took a two-week trip to China. The mentor, a cancer researcher, told Wang he was impressed with the Chinese counterparts he met. When Wang visited China in 2012 with another mentor, the Harvard scientist praised young researchers' creativity.

Cross-border engagement can even help smooth over controversies.

In August, Nature published an online story that some readers perceived as questioning the legitimacy of Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen's record-breaking performance at the London Olympics. Nature defended the story, saying it was triggered by a debate over the role of banned substances in sports and the role of science in addressing doubts over "extraordinary performances" by athletes. The journal said it didn't single out Ye because of her nationality, as some critics alleged.

In an editor's note appended to the piece, Nature said a "combination of errors and the absence of a more detailed discussion of the statistics" left the impression that the journal supported accusations against Ye, "even though this was emphatically not our intention. For that, we apologize to our readers and to Ye Shiwen".

According to Yale University professor Zhong Weimin, Chinese scholars were among those who helped persuade Nature to issue its apology. He said he and two colleagues drafted a letter to Nature on behalf of the Chinese Biological Investigators Society.

"Our members noted the issue and provided us with many of the facts cited in the letter, and our board of directors decided to speak out," Zhong said. "I think the message to take away from this incident is that we need to fight bias with rational action - namely, using facts to rebut misinformation."

The professor also acknowledges the corrosive effect of academic misconduct in China, where ethical breaches are often dealt with lightly, if at all, but rewards - career prestige and financial enrichment - can be huge. Unless China adopts a zero-tolerance policy, Zhong said, the problem will get worse and threaten the country's drive to become a leader in science, technology and innovation.

Zhao, of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America and the University of Maryland, said that while Chinese researchers are aware of plagiarism and other types of misconduct, the pressure to publish in "high-impact" journals in China has led some to bend, or break, the rules.

"While the impact factor should be one of the criteria, an overall and more balance approaches should be used to evaluate the impact of a scientist," he said.

Contact the writer at chenjia@chinadailyusa.com