Leading Russian chemist and materials scientist Artem Oganov, who received China’s top international science and technology award, said the honour from the world’s No 1 science power was a sign he was “on the right track”.
Oganov, a distinguished professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow and long-time China collaborator, and eight other experts were awarded the International Science and Technology Cooperation Award by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a ceremony in Beijing last week.
After Oganov visited China in 2008, he told colleagues and friends in Europe that the country was “on the way” to being No 1 in both industry and science, but said this was met with scepticism at the time.
He told the South China Morning Post on Monday that, 18 years on, “China is No 1 – in industry, in economy, and indeed also in science.”
Noting that America used to be the top scientific power, he pointed to the fact that China now accounts for a third of global scientific publications, adding that it was not just numbers, but “quality”.
China holds the top spot in the 2026 Nature Index – an analysis of over 125,000 research articles published in 178 leading publications in 2025 – with the US in second place.