Driving shared benefits: China’s gold OA collaboration with the Global South

Author: Silvia He

China’s growth in gold open access (OA) publishing is increasing the visibility, reach, and global use of its research, as a new white paper from Springer Nature shows. But openness is only part of the story. When openness is combined with international collaboration, research can travel further and have greater impact. This blog explores how collaboration between China and the Global South is contributing to that shift. It also considers what these findings may mean for organisations seeking to strengthen the global reach and impact of their research.

Openness is reshaping collaboration. As China’s gold OA output continues to grow, its research partnerships with the Global South are also expanding. And these collaborations are delivering measurable benefits for both sides. 

The Springer Nature white paper, Open for impact: China’s gold open access boosting global innovation and supporting the Global South, shows that gold OA articles co-authored by researchers in China and the Global South consistently achieve stronger citation impact and broader engagement than comparable publication sets. This makes the China–Global South example especially relevant for research organisations thinking about the role of OA and collaboration in a global context. It shows how open publishing, when combined with international collaboration, can help research travel further, strengthen strategic partnerships, and increase the visibility of work connected to shared research priorities. 

China–Global South gold OA collaboration is growing

The white paper shows that gold OA co-authored publications between China and the Global South have expanded significantly in recent years. The number of co-authored gold OA articles grew from around 11,000 in 2020 to more than 19,000 in 2024, equating to a CAGR of 15%. This growth is also becoming visible within the Global South’s own gold OA output. In 2020, China–Global South co-authored articles represented 2.8% of all Global South gold OA articles. By 2024, this had risen to 3.8%. These figures indicate that China–Global South collaboration is not a marginal trend. Collaboration is becoming a more prominent part of the global OA landscape.

Collaborative gold OA articles show stronger citation impact for both regions

The growth in China–Global South collaboration is not only visible in publication volume; it is also reflected in citation performance. Gold OA articles co-authored by China and the Global South generated 195,000 two-year citations for articles published in 2020, rising to 303,000 for articles published in 2022.

On a per-article basis, the shared citation advantage is particularly clear. For 2022 articles, China–Global South co-authored gold OA articles received 16.1 two-year citations per article, compared with 5.1 for all Global South gold OA articles and 9.9 for all China gold OA articles. A similar pattern was visible for articles published in 2020. 

This suggests that openness and collaboration can reinforce each other. Gold OA makes research immediately accessible, while international co-authorship can connect that research to wider scholarly networks. Together, these factors may increase the likelihood that research is discovered, cited, and built upon across regions.

Collaboration extends the reach of Global South research

The gold OA articles co-authored by researchers in China and the Global South not only have a greater citation impact per article, but also have more impact in the rest of the world. According to the white paper, the citation advantage for the co-authored gold OA articles notably reaches beyond the Global South. For 2022 publications, these co-authored articles received 23.8 citations per article globally, with 17.0 from the rest of the world (outside of the Global South but including China), significantly higher than 10.3 in the Global South. 

Collaboration also makes OA research more widely visible beyond academia.  In 2024, co-authored articles had an Altmetric Score of 5.4 per article, receiving 3 times more mentions from traditional media, patents, policy documents, social media, and other online sources, than the Global South gold OA articles. 

It is evident that international OA collaboration can help extend the reach of research beyond regional and academic boundaries, increasing its visibility and use globally.

Global South engagement contributes to China’s global impact

The benefits of collaboration also extend to China’s global research impact. China’s gold OA articles published industry-wide in 2022 generated 1.53 million citations from publications outside China. Of these, 742,000 citations came from across the Global South, representing 19% of total citations. The top 3 Global South countries with the highest number of citations to China’s gold OA articles were India, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. 

This means the Global South is not only a collaboration partner, but also an important source of research use and citation. Where research organisations are looking to strengthen international engagement, or contribution to development-related goals, partnership with the Global South on OA research would be a wise investment.

Where collaboration is gaining momentum

China–Global South gold OA collaboration is especially visible in several research fields. The white paper identifies engineering, biomedical and clinical sciences, and biological sciences among the subject areas with the largest number of China–Global South co-authored gold OA articles. This disciplinary pattern matters because OA strategies are rarely one-size-fits-all, and collaboration decisions can be made around shared research priorities.

On a country level, in 2022, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, India, Singapore, and Malaysia collaborated with China on the highest number of gold OA articles, with China-co-authored publications representing 25% of Pakistan’s gold OA article output and 30% of Singapore’s. Across these examples, the white paper reports a citation boost for articles co-authored with China, suggesting that country-level data can help identify where partnerships are already producing visible research outcomes, and where further support may help expand them.

Collaboration in institutional OA strategy 

The white paper recommends deepening collaboration with the Global South through targeted OA research programmes, joint labs, co-funded projects, researcher mobility, and education around the benefits of Global South collaboration. It also highlights the value of connecting OA efforts with science diplomacy, Sustainable Development Goal priorities, and wider support for gold OA. 

The broader takeaway for institutions could be that OA strategy should not be treated only as an operational publishing issue. Supporting gold OA can help research travel further, and even more value can be seen when OA is aligned with wider goals: building international partnerships, supporting researchers in priority disciplines, and making research more visible to communities that can use and build on it. 

China–Global South gold OA collaboration is growing, highly cited, and increasingly visible across regions and disciplines. When openness and collaboration work together, they can strengthen the global dissemination and use of research, creating shared value for China, the Global South, and the wider research community.

Explore the white paper for more details: Open for impact: China’s gold open access boosting global innovation and supporting the Global South.

Related contents:

• Open for impact: What China’s OA growth shows about the future of global research 
• How gold open access helps researchers expand their global impact 
• To publish OA, what institutional support do Chinese researchers need most?

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