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• Safety science has been developed and has received more and more attention in China in recent years. • Safety science in China is now becoming an independent discipline and an important research field. • A systematic review of the history, legislation, education and research of safety science in China was conducted. • The future developments of safety science in China were introduced briefly. The practice and study of safety science in China has a long and prolific history. In China, safety science originated in the early 1950s, soon after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. However, the more complete concept, research and practice of safety science were defined after the late 1970s, when China started its full-scale drive for economic reform and policy of openness. In the past decades, particularly in the 21st century, with the support of and encouragement from the Chinese government, safety science in China has undergone many changes and has been developed such that it is now becoming an independent discipline and an important research and practice field. Evidently, the research and practice of safety science in China has been fruitful. However, this was not well known to the world because most of the works addressing safety science were published or introduced in Chinese. Focusing on the discipline level of safety science, this paper provides a complete overview of safety science in China from five perspectives, namely, history, legislation, education, research, and prospects. The paper attempts to promote the cooperation and exchange between China and other countries to provide effective evidence-based services for the development of safety science in countries across the world. However, more detailed research on China's safety science should be carried out for a deeper understanding of China's work safety research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents Hefei, China's contribution to the Nature Index based on weighted fractional count of scientific articles published in 2013, with the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) as the city's largest contributing institution. USTC's contributed papers include topics on chemistry such as the development of graphene-like materials and carbon aerogels, and on physics like quantum optics. The Hefei University of Technology focused on engineering topics like nanowires.

Postdoctoral fellows (postdocs) play a crucial role in the research productivity of any country. The United States and China are the world's two largest economies and are ranked first and second in scientific research, as quantified by the number of annual publications. However, these two countries have contrasting postdoc standards and different amounts of funds allocated for research and development (R&D). We compare the number of postdocs, R&D fund allocation, and the number of annual publications of these two countries. We conclude that the United States has comparably higher postdoc standards, but limited growth in R&D funds during the last decade is making it increasingly hard for postdocs to find permanent jobs. Conversely, R&D funds have increased nearly tenfold in China, but postdoc standards remain low. We discuss the need to increase R&D funds in the United States and improve postdoc standards in China to maintain a thriving global postdoc community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]