Recommendations and conclusion
Recommendations
To maximise the impact of China’s gold OA publishing and strengthen scientific exchange with the Global South, the following actions are recommended:
Deepen collaboration with the Global South
Primary stakeholders: Government ministries, funding bodies, universities, international offices
- Develop targeted bilateral and multilateral OA research programmes.
- Support joint labs, co-funded projects, and researcher mobility with key Global South partners.
- Educate researchers about the benefits of collaborating with the Global South.
Leverage OA for global science diplomacy
Primary stakeholders: Government ministries, universities, senior research leaders
- Use China’s OA leadership to support scientific development in the Global South.
- Highlight high-impact OA collaborations and align OA efforts with SDG priorities.
Consider the best publication platform for your OA research
Primary stakeholders: Researchers, institutions
- It matters where you publish, as shown by the Springer Nature case studies which demonstrate how these OA articles outperform the market average.
Expand national support for gold OA
Primary stakeholders: Government agencies, university leadership
- Educate researchers about the benefits of publishing gold OA for greater visibility and impact.
- Increase dedicated funding for gold OA publishing in priority disciplines.
- Encourage institutions to incorporate OA outputs and international reach into research assessment and promotion criteria.
Conclusion
Gold OA articles are making a significant contribution to China’s STM ambitions, and they are having a significant impact in the Global South. China’s gold OA articles in 2022 gained over 742,000 citations from the Global South, accounting for over 19% of the total citations.
There is compelling evidence that China’s gold OA articles and OA articles in hybrid journals are having a greater impact than non-OA articles, showing the effectiveness of gold OA articles in the dissemination of scientific knowledge as well as giving immediate access to the research results. Gold OA articles were found to have almost double the number of citations and more than four times the number of downloads.
When comparing both the impact of institutions and subject areas in the Global South, there is a clear citation advantage when publishing with an established publisher like Springer Nature, in comparison to all gold OA articles.
Collaboration between China and the Global South has been increasing in recent years in the production of gold OA articles, and it has had a beneficial impact for both China and the Global South. This can be seen in the greater number of citations per article for collaborative articles between China and the Global South.
More gold OA articles by China in the future can be expected to make a significant contribution to China’s influence both in the Global South and the rest of the world.
Built with Shorthand