China is catching up in science and innovation: the experience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

How can a developing country narrow its science and innovation gap with leading countries? The Knowledge Innovation Program (KIP) in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is a giant program for this purpose in China This article investigates the scientific input and output of CAS since KIP started to be implemented ten years ago Based on quantitative analysis, we can conclude from the results that KIP is a powerful policy tool for CAS to recruit talent, restructure CAS institutes, extend the researcher pool and introduce merit-based criteria This has led CAS to narrow the science gap with leading countries, however, the innovation gap has still not been narrowed much.