In the past 20 years, Chinese scientists have been encouraged to disseminate their research internationally to demonstrate China’s achievement in science. China has been the largest source country in terms of the number of international publications. However, with the journal paywalls and embargoes hindering the advance of science, international publications are often inaccessible to local Chinese readers. The dissemination to the international audience may come at the expense of dissemination to local Chinese scientific community, which does not serve another purpose of scientific research that science should promote the development of national economy. After investigating the citation pattern of China’s international publications since 1990s and comparing the local research impact between Web of Science and CSCD papers, this study finds that the international research impact of China’s international publications is lower than their CSCD counterparts. The findings of this study imply that Chinese scholars should disseminate and share their research findings in local publication venues in this new scientific research evaluation system.
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