South Korea has been ranked 12th in the world for the number of scientific theses that are within the top ten percent of papers cited by other researchers. 

The National Institute of Science and Technology Policy under Japan’s science ministry revealed on Tuesday the rankings of nations from which such theses published in 2018 hailed from. It was based on data compiled by Clarivate, a British firm that operates subscription-based services focused on analytics. 

According to the institute, China topped the global share with 24-point-eight percent, followed by the U.S. with 22-point-nine percent. Ten years ago, the U.S. had ranked first and China second. Japan, meanwhile, ranked tenth, down by five notches from a decade earlier. 

Of such papers considered to be among the top one percent in the world, China accounted for 25 percent of the total, close to the roughly 27 percent posted by the U.S. 

Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun said the number of scientific theses held by a nation serves as a basic index used to gauge research and development activity. The newspaper said the latest findings show that China is seeing an increase in not only the quantity but also quality of academic papers in areas related to industrial competitiveness.