Research supply chain: whose funding feeds whose research

A supply chain of research: the countries whose funding produced papers in the 400 tracked journals (the sources), and the countries and institutions whose papers published since 2023 cite them (the users). A citation link is one paper citing another, both in the tracked journals (from OpenAlex references). The source is the country of the cited paper's funders (OpenAlex funders and their countries); the users are the countries and institutions of the citing paper's authors. A link counts once for each funding country of the cited paper and each country (or institution) of the citing paper, so the rows overlap. Papers without funding information, about half of them, have no source. Also as Markdown.

Key findings#

Papers published in the tracked journals since 2023 cite other papers of these journals 1,729,215 times; 52% of those citations go to papers whose funders' country is known.
Research funded from China is cited most (470,971 links to 66,702 funded papers); 78% of the links come from papers with authors in China itself, and abroad mostly from the United States, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.
United States-funded research follows with 106,280 links (23% from the United States; top users abroad: China and the United Kingdom).
United Kingdom-funded research follows with 49,911 links (18% from the United Kingdom; top users abroad: China and the United States).
Among the ten largest funding countries, research funded from Canada is used most abroad: 89% of its links come from other countries.
Papers with authors in China draw most on research funded elsewhere (234,684 links), above all from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
The institutions citing China-funded research most are Hong Kong Polytechnic University (11,229), Chinese Academy of Sciences (10,001) and Xi'an Jiaotong University (9,016).

From funding to use#

Left: the funding country of the cited papers (the seven largest, then the rest). Right: the country of the citing papers (the ten largest, then the rest). Band width is the number of citation links between the two; hover a band for its number. A link whose citing paper has authors in several countries, or whose cited paper has funders in several countries, appears in each of their bands, so the bands add up to more than the links in the tables.

Who cites whom#

Citation links since 2023: funding country of the cited paper (rows) by country of the citing paper (columns)
Funded from \ cited by	China	United States	United Kingdom	Australia	Hong Kong	Germany	Italy	France	India	Spain	All countries
China	367,090	37,269	30,598	21,465	23,187	6,717	8,156	10,399	13,265	7,965	470,971
United States	43,932	24,660	10,585	6,090	4,704	6,402	5,232	4,731	3,738	3,378	106,280
United Kingdom	17,092	7,476	8,859	3,082	1,630	3,829	3,638	2,855	2,162	2,149	49,911
Germany	9,814	5,450	4,028	1,760	925	7,857	2,868	2,157	1,167	1,594	36,779
Spain	12,013	4,116	3,838	1,685	788	1,860	2,713	2,052	1,744	6,020	36,267
Australia	13,331	3,900	2,930	4,387	1,433	1,534	1,189	1,128	1,151	892	29,182
Canada	12,212	4,629	3,026	1,630	1,287	1,525	1,402	1,551	1,067	892	28,998
South Korea	12,834	3,030	2,233	1,428	1,008	781	811	1,006	1,617	776	27,120
Hong Kong	12,986	2,564	1,767	1,157	3,275	463	423	514	582	352	20,053
Italy	4,785	2,270	2,278	826	366	1,578	4,742	1,343	762	1,222	19,331
France	6,239	2,877	2,011	873	609	1,492	1,537	2,623	628	852	18,812
Japan	8,171	2,026	1,574	919	624	759	782	803	772	568	18,679

Funding countries#

Funding countries by the citation links their funded papers received since 2023
#	Funding country	Funded papers cited	Links	From home	Top users abroad
1	China	66,702	470,971	78%	United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong
2	United States	17,956	106,280	23%	China, United Kingdom, Germany
3	United Kingdom	8,195	49,911	18%	China, United States, Germany
4	Germany	7,052	36,779	21%	China, United States, United Kingdom
5	Spain	6,630	36,267	17%	China, United States, United Kingdom
6	Australia	4,568	29,182	15%	China, United States, United Kingdom
7	Canada	4,634	28,998	11%	China, United States, United Kingdom
8	South Korea	4,469	27,120	14%	China, United States, United Kingdom
9	Hong Kong	2,765	20,053	16%	China, United States, United Kingdom
10	Italy	3,923	19,331	25%	China, United Kingdom, United States
11	France	3,706	18,812	14%	China, United States, United Kingdom
12	Japan	4,179	18,679	15%	China, United States, United Kingdom
13	Netherlands	2,329	14,481	13%	China, United States, United Kingdom
14	Sweden	2,221	13,179	10%	China, United States, United Kingdom
15	Singapore	1,659	13,129	9%	China, United States, United Kingdom
16	Brazil	2,669	12,403	15%	China, United States, United Kingdom
17	Taiwan	2,341	11,972	12%	China, United States, United Kingdom
18	Switzerland	2,041	11,890	8%	China, United States, United Kingdom
19	Portugal	1,948	11,220	11%	China, United Kingdom, United States
20	Belgium	1,764	9,617	10%	China, United States, United Kingdom
21	India	1,656	8,905	17%	China, United States, United Kingdom
22	Finland	1,319	8,691	9%	China, United States, United Kingdom
23	Austria	1,299	7,461	9%	China, United States, Germany
24	Norway	1,199	6,358	10%	China, United States, United Kingdom
25	South Africa	944	5,838	2%	China, United States, United Kingdom
26	Poland	1,053	5,641	15%	China, United States, United Kingdom
27	Czechia	988	5,324	13%	China, United States, United Kingdom
28	Denmark	978	5,205	7%	China, United States, United Kingdom
29	Saudi Arabia	824	4,834	10%	China, United Kingdom, India
30	Vietnam	717	4,630	13%	China, United Kingdom, United States
31	Russia	736	4,310	11%	China, United Kingdom, United States
32	Ireland	661	4,292	7%	China, United Kingdom, United States
33	New Zealand	586	4,089	11%	China, United States, United Kingdom
34	Chile	829	3,555	16%	China, United States, United Kingdom
35	Malaysia	603	3,407	9%	China, India, United States
36	Turkey	682	3,256	12%	China, United States, United Kingdom
37	Macao	445	3,235	9%	China, United States, United Kingdom
38	Israel	651	2,373	15%	China, United States, United Kingdom
39	United Arab Emirates	345	2,293	11%	China, United States, United Kingdom
40	Sri Lanka	323	2,259	0%	China, United States, Australia

Citing countries#

Citing countries by their links to funded papers since 2023
#	Citing country	Links to funded papers	Funded abroad	Top sources abroad
1	China	510,629	46%	United States, United Kingdom, Australia
2	United States	102,993	101%	China, United Kingdom, Germany
3	United Kingdom	78,096	114%	China, United States, Germany
4	Australia	47,010	114%	China, United States, United Kingdom
5	Hong Kong	37,852	116%	China, United States, United Kingdom
6	Germany	37,842	108%	China, United States, United Kingdom
7	Italy	36,896	114%	China, United States, United Kingdom
8	France	34,613	117%	China, United States, United Kingdom
9	India	33,615	116%	China, United States, United Kingdom
10	Spain	28,714	104%	China, United States, United Kingdom
11	Canada	27,306	112%	China, United States, United Kingdom
12	South Korea	25,527	107%	China, United States, United Kingdom
13	Netherlands	18,164	120%	China, United States, United Kingdom
14	Singapore	16,618	121%	China, United States, United Kingdom
15	Turkey	15,441	117%	China, United States, Spain
16	Taiwan	15,023	109%	China, United States, South Korea
17	Macao	14,696	115%	China, United States, United Kingdom
18	Japan	14,346	105%	China, United States, United Kingdom
19	Malaysia	11,077	113%	China, United States, Spain
20	Sweden	10,720	115%	China, United States, United Kingdom
21	Saudi Arabia	10,454	116%	China, United States, Spain
22	Iran	10,438	115%	China, United States, Canada
23	Poland	9,846	115%	China, United States, Spain
24	Vietnam	9,374	116%	China, United States, South Korea
25	United Arab Emirates	9,319	119%	China, United States, United Kingdom
26	Brazil	9,210	104%	China, United States, United Kingdom
27	Belgium	8,860	119%	China, United States, United Kingdom
28	Switzerland	8,659	124%	United States, China, Germany
29	Finland	8,624	115%	China, United States, United Kingdom
30	New Zealand	8,374	119%	China, United States, United Kingdom
31	Portugal	7,928	109%	China, United States, Spain
32	Pakistan	7,699	118%	China, United States, Spain
33	Norway	7,690	118%	China, United States, United Kingdom
34	Denmark	7,453	122%	China, United States, United Kingdom
35	Austria	6,900	121%	China, United States, Germany
36	Lebanon	5,564	119%	China, United States, South Korea
37	South Africa	5,341	120%	China, United States, United Kingdom
38	Czechia	5,267	112%	China, United States, United Kingdom
39	Greece	5,238	120%	China, United States, United Kingdom
40	Ireland	5,064	121%	China, United States, United Kingdom

Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Research supply chain: whose funding feeds whose research. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 31, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/supply-chain

@misc{scholar4ai-supply-chain,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Research supply chain: whose funding feeds whose research},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/supply-chain}},
  urldate = {2026-10-31},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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