EDITOR’S note:

CHINA’S life science and biotechnology have grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade. As Chinese biological researchers mature, their research is increasingly published in prestigious journals like Science, Nature and Cell, a US-based journal focused on developments in biology.

But is the urge to publish in these journals really positive for Chinese academia? And what is the global status of Chinese life science? Dr Emilie Marcus, editor-in-chief of Cell, spoke to Shanghai Daily reporter Ni Tao recently about these issues.

Q: How would you comment on the current Chinese research on life science? Could you rank it?

A: I have seen it grow tremendously since I started coming to China in 2000, much more rapidly and significantly than I thought was possible then.

When I visit Chinese institutions now and talk to Chinese researchers, I really find their strength of science to be quite noticeable.

I don’t think I would be so bold as to try to rank Chinese science on a global scale. I would have a bigger view of its position. But in the institutes I visited, their key laboratories are as strong as any institutes I visited worldwide.

I think in China labs are still a little restricted, not spread throughout all the institutions and universities across the country. Over the next few years, I expect to see more institutes grow and improve — not just the major ones in Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities, but really throughout China.

Q: Are Chinese researchers as lively and ambitious as their Western counterparts?

A: Absolutely, every bit as lively and ambitious. There are some cultural differences that come historically from approaches to science and the fact that this focus on science is relatively new in Chinese history, maybe no longer than 15 to 20 years.

In terms of how they think about communicating their work, they are much more ambitious and driven than scientists in many parts of the world. They’ve always been very ambitious, committed and very driven. But they are less focused on how to tell the story and present the soft side of science, how to express the data to help readers understand the significance.

They tend to focus very much on more objective aspects, saying “this is the data I have.” And I think I’m starting to see them evolve in terms of understanding the other aspects of presenting their work, both in writing and in speaking.

Q: What is the biggest obstacle to development of life science in China?

A: The funding is clearly there, the motivation, skills, the creativity of scientists are clearly there. I think the infrastructure is slightly different. Labs (in China) tend to be mostly manned by graduate students.

That’s bit of a challenge for how to train young scientists. If you’ve got one head of a lab and 30 graduate students, how do they get trained? Typically in the United States, you have a layer of senior scientists above the graduate students who could help the lab to train them.

I think as Chinese science grows, post doctors will stay. They used to go abroad to do their post-doctorals and then come back. But I think we are going to see more of them stay in China for their post-doctoral degrees in some of those leading labs. That will start to change the structure of the lab itself over time.

Q: Cell has published a lot of papers authored or co-authored by Chinese candidates. What does that tell us about the quality of Chinese research in life science?

A: I think it is growing. I’ve seen over the last five years that most of the submissions we used to get from China were not yet of the quality that would be for publication in Cell.

That’s really changed in the last three to five years, when we’ve seen a lot of submissions from very strong candidates. So I think again the best science coming out of China is the best in the world.

Q: Are you aware of the “publish or perish” pressure on Chinese scholars? Is that pressure positive or negative?

A: I’d say it’s probably both. I think competition and pressure to do better is generally a good thing and makes all of us do our best work.

But science is not about publishing in the best journals; science is about uncovering new understanding of how it works. That’s what the focus should be on. And if you put too much pressure and focus on publishing in the three journals (Nature, Science and Cell), to me it really sort of distorts the reasons why one would be a scientist.

The whole purpose is not about publishing per se. It’s really about finding something new about biology and hopefully making a contribution to understanding diseases, treatment or just biology better.

Probably at the moment there is a little too much emphasis on where you publish and not enough balance with what you are working on and why that is interesting.

Q: Chinese submissions to leading science journals are occasionally rejected. Does that mean their quality doesn’t measure up to global standards?

A: I think most likely what it means is that editors are very committed to improving understanding among Chinese science researchers of how to judge what journal their work is appropriate for.

Because wherever you are in the world, if you are submitting a paper to a journal that’s not a good fit for that paper, it won’t do well and you will get turned away.

And again if your choice is based on the pressure you have — “I have to submit it to Cell” — it’s just going to be frustrating even if Cell hasn’t published anything like this.

Maybe in the US there’s a sense among authors where to send things.

And they don’t just try to send everything to the top journals because they know that some papers cannot go to Science or Nature.

That would help the perception that papers are getting turned away not because science in China isn’t good enough to get into those journals.

We are publishing a lot more (Chinese manuscripts). But we are also seeing a lot more submissions that are clearly not of the level of what the journal needs.

So I think it helps if authors in China understand that where best to submit their works and what criteria to take into account aren’t just about impact factors.

Q: Are American peers under the same pressure to publish?

A: Very much so. There is an equal pressure to publish, but less of a focus on impact factors.

In the US I haven’t talked to anybody whose promotion decision is based on impact factors.

There is a sense that you need papers published in Science, Nature and Cell for the very best jobs in the US, but not for all jobs.

But they spend a lot more time interviewing the candidates, talking to the candidates about what their works are about. It’s a much more subjective process.

Q: Can you say something about the relationship between big data and life science?

A: Certainly life science and research is moving into an era of big data.

The techniques today in biological science are really generating huge amounts of data.

How to keep and archive that data, how to make it accessible and usable, that’s a big challenge for the community.

Thirty years ago, technologies didn’t create so much data, but now they do. We need to figure out how to manage that big data.

Q: What is the prospect of Chinese science journals going global?

A: I’ve spoken with editors of Chinese biomedical journals, talking about how to bring in a global audience and authorship base, how to really improve the quality of these journals. We have given a perspective on that.

A missing element in their publications is the idea of how certain journals embrace and affect science globally. Any journal — whether it’s based in China or in the US — that takes a narrow nationalistic focus — and that is not specific to China — will be challenged in a global environment. To be one of the best journals in the world, you have to be a journal of the world.

And it’s equally important to ask how we can make our journals represent the best science worldwide, not just the best of American or Chinese science.