The National Science Foundation’s 2018 Science & Engineering Indicators report (https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/) shows that China has become the single largest producer of scientific research worldwide. JoVE has been filming video articles in China for a relatively short time, but already articles from the country make up a sizable portion of publications in the journal.
In 2016 JoVE installed videographers in China to facilitate the publication of methods originating in this burgeoning center of research and development. By this spring, the 200th article from China was in press.
There was a rapid response to the opportunity to publish video articles. Many Chinese scientists were already aware of the journal from library subscriptions or articles from international colleagues. According to Jialan Zhang, Editor of JoVE Engineering, "We saw a lot of enthusiasm from researchers in China when we opened our first locations there, especially in fields like engineering and physics". Publishing in JoVE seems to be viewed as a good way to reach a wider international audience. In China, research has experienced some well-documented issues with reproducibility, and video publication offers a level of transparency that is appealing to scientists who want to ensure that their work can be reproduced and built upon by their colleagues.
Here are some highlights from the first 200 JoVE video articles from China.
December 2016
The first article produced by JoVE in China is published! Researchers at Zhejiang Agricultural & Forestry University demonstrate methods for monitoring and quantifying mating behavior in pinewood nematodes.
April 2017
Scientists at Zhejiang University and Zhejiang Ocean University publish a gold standard protocol for controlling G-protein coupled receptor gene expression in mammalian cell lines and studying its subcellular localization and internalization by confocal microscopy
August 2017
3D Seismic Imaging of Subsurface Volcanoes: Peking University researchers use seismic imaging and advanced data processing to visualize flood basalts in the Northern Tarim Basin
January 2018
The Behnisch group at the Institute of Brain Science at Fudan University demonstrate their chamber for recording synaptic plasticity in acute hippocampal slices.
May 2018
Microhoneycomb Monoliths - A unidirectional freeze-drying approach to creating multifunctional cellulose structures from Tsinghua University, Tianjin University, and Tohuku University is published in JoVE Bioengineering
These are some highlights from top institutions, but it’s difficult to survey the breadth of video articles published over the past couple of years in this short article. Articles from Chinese institutions make up a large portion of all video publications; with 8.6% of JoVE articles published in 2018 authored by researchers from China. This is a good start but still well under the global average (China accounted for 20% of the world’s total publications as reported in a recent study). We expect to see many more interesting, useful video articles from China-based researchers in the years to come.