Is China’s top-down science strategy driving innovation or killing it?

Study challenging view that free exploration is best for innovation sparks debate over role of state-driven science in frontier research

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A new study suggests that China’s recent surge of state-driven scientific breakthroughs has been far more impactful than curiosity-driven exploration. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 6:00pm, 30 Mar 2025

Conventional wisdom in Western academia holds that pioneering innovations predominantly spring from free exploration, while top-down directives are often dismissed as stifling creativity. Yet history reveals a paradox: many pivotal technological leaps – from the atomic bomb to the moon landing – owe their success to centralised government orchestration.

A large-scale empirical study by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) has challenged entrenched assumptions, showing that in China’s recent surge of scientific breakthroughs, organised, state-driven research has proven far more impactful than curiosity-driven exploration.

The analysis of more than 87,000 papers published by 185 national key laboratories found that projects aligned with national strategic goals – backed by interdisciplinary collaboration, resource concentration, and mission-oriented teams – were significantly more likely to yield high-impact breakthroughs.

Projects born of free exploration – despite its celebrated role in fostering serendipitous discoveries – showed no statistically meaningful correlation with major advances within large-scale teams, according to UCAS. The divergence, the study argues, stems from systemic advantages: centralised frameworks efficiently mobilise talent, funding and infrastructure to tackle complex challenges, as exemplified by China’s lunar probes, quantum satellites and infrastructure megaprojects.

However, instead of settling the debate, the findings have revived it. While affirming the potency of China’s “whole-nation system”, or juguo tizhi, in “big science” endeavours, the study’s lead author has cautioned against neglecting bottom-up exploration, particularly in frontier fields like artificial intelligence (AI) and biology where disruptive ideas often emerge unpredictably from small, independent teams.

As nations grapple with balancing agility and scale in innovation policy, China’s hybrid model – harnessing top-down coordination while cautiously nurturing exploratory niches – offers a provocative template for the era of “big science”.

The survey of data from state key laboratories included 108 labs affiliated with universities and research institutes, and 77 affiliated with enterprises. National labs are a critical force in China’s scientific research landscape.

“These laboratories actually have an advantage in conducting top-level design research projects due to advantages such as efficient resource pooling and interdisciplinary teams,” Tang Chaoying, lead author of the study and a professor at UCAS, said in an interview on March 21.