Shanghai ranked first nationwide in overall science and technology innovation performance, according to the China Regional Science and Technology Innovation Evaluation Report 2025.

The top ranking reflects the steady strengthening of Shanghai's innovation ecosystem in recent years, underpinned by sustained increases in funding.

From 2022 to 2025, the city's fiscal spending on science and technology grew at an average annual rate of more than 20 percent, while investment in basic research increased by 85 percent.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), R&D expenditure as a share of GDP rose to around 4.5 percent.

The report assesses regional innovation ecosystems using a structured set of indicators that measure innovation inputs, outputs, and organizational efficiency.

Strong performance in input-output efficiency

Compiled by the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development, the report draws on statistical data from government departments. It evaluates the comprehensive innovation performance of 31 provincial-level regions in the Chinese mainland.

Its evaluation results have been incorporated into science and technology development targets in multiple regions, making it one of the country's longest-running and most stable regional innovation assessment systems.

In the 2025 edition, Shanghai ranked first with a score of 91.38, up one place from the previous year and 2.18 percentage points higher year-on-year. Beijing, Jiangsu province, Guangdong province, and Zhejiang province followed in second through fifth places.

In terms of science and technology output, Shanghai ranked first nationwide, topping the subcategories of innovation output and technology commercialization.

Compared with the previous year, Shanghai's revenue from international technology services grew by 8.94 percent, accounting for 34.22 percent of the national total.

Business development revenue in the biopharmaceutical sector is an important component of international technology services income. According to Pharmcube, Shanghai ranked first nationwide in the number of outbound licensing transactions for innovative drugs in 2025, accounting for about one-third of the national total.

In academic research, scientists based in Shanghai published 181 papers in Science, Nature, and Cell in 2025, accounting for 30.6 percent of the national total.

Despite ranking fifth nationwide in innovation investment, Shanghai led the country in innovation output, reflecting high efficiency in organizing science and technology innovation activities, according to Zhang Mizhi, head of the statistical evaluation research office at the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science.

Significant gains in high-tech industry performance

In innovation-related human resources, Shanghai scored 100 and ranked first nationwide, supported by continued growth in university enrollment.

Investment in innovation infrastructure also rose markedly, with increased spending on scientific instruments and equipment, while the share of fixed assets in high-tech industries remained at a high level.

Shanghai ranked third nationwide in high-tech industry performance, rising 13 places from the previous year, with steady gains in labor productivity across knowledge-intensive service industries, intellectual property-intensive sectors, and strategic emerging sectors.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Shanghai has made major efforts to advance core technologies in three leading industries: integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence. In 2024, the combined scale of these three industries reached 1.8 trillion yuan ($258.01 billion).

In recent years, Shanghai has explored a project manager system to support frontier technologies and future industries, promoting integrated deployment of projects, funding, talent, platforms, and policies in areas such as brain-computer interfaces, 6G, and quantum computing.

In October 2025, Shanghai introduced a package of policy measures to accelerate frontier technology innovation and the development of future industries, focusing on future manufacturing, future information, future materials, future energy, future space, and future health, to advance the transformation of innovation outcomes from laboratories to industrial applications.

Source: Jiefang Daily