The past 40 years have witnessed profound changes in the international competitiveness of Mainland China’s scientific research. Based on publication data from Chinese researchers in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) from the Web of Science (WoS), this study aims to provide a bird’s-eye view of how social science research in Mainland China has internationalized over the past four decades. The findings show that the number of social science articles published by Chinese authors in international journals has experienced a noticeable increase, and the collaboration networks of researchers from Mainland China have broadened, with the number of articles with a Chinese first author showing a strong upward trend. In addition, findings show that Chinese scholars are published in a wider range of journals, and there has been a steady increase in their appearance in higher impact journals (influenced in part by certain journals). Finally, different social science disciplines show various degrees of internationalization . This study provides a broad view from which to examine the internationalization process in Mainland China’s social science landscape in the last four decades, while also noting some of the possible explanations for these changes, thereby deepening our understanding of social science research stemming from the region.

Peer review of scientific manuscripts before publication is essential in scholarly publishing, and most active researchers hold relationships with a number of journals as both an author and a reviewer. There have been several studies focusing on gender balance in academic research and authorship, but fewer studies on our role as reviewers. Publons is a commercial website run by Clarivate Analytics that allows researchers to track and verify their peer review activities and be recognized for it. The platform features over 2 million researchers and 6.9 million reviews for more than 5,000 partnered journals, listing the most active reviewers as "top reviewers". Our study focuses on gender representation in this 'top reviewer' group while also looking at the countries, regions and research fields they represent, as well as the relationship between their roles as authors and reviewers. The results show that male reviewers dominate in almost all countries, regions, and research fields. Male reviewers generally contribute to review work more frequently than females; however, female reviewers write longer reviews. The correlations between reviewing activity and research activity are generally weak overall and within specific research fields. This may reflect that active reviewers are not necessarily the most productive researchers in their fields. What clearly emerges from our results is the need for more concern over gender representation in the quality assurance and gatekeeping functions of scholarly publishing.

Peer review of scientific manuscripts before publication is essential in scholarly publishing, and most active researchers hold relationships with a number of journals as both an author and a reviewer. There have been several studies focusing on gender balance in academic research and authorship, but fewer studies on our role as reviewers. Publons is a commercial website run by Clarivate Analytics that allows researchers to track and verify their peer review activities and be recognized for it. The platform features over 2 million researchers and 6.9 million reviews for more than 5,000 partnered journals, listing the most active reviewers as “top reviewers”. Our study focuses on gender representation in this ‘top reviewer’ group while also looking at the countries, regions and research fields they represent, as well as the relationship between their roles as authors and reviewers. The results show that male reviewers dominate in almost all countries, regions, and research fields. Male reviewers generally contribute to review work more frequently than females; however, female reviewers write longer reviews. The correlations between reviewing activity and research activity are generally weak overall and within specific research fields. This may reflect that active reviewers are not necessarily the most productive researchers in their fields. What clearly emerges from our results is the need for more concern over gender representation in the quality assurance and gatekeeping functions of scholarly publishing.

In 2016, the United Nations officially launched the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to address urgent global challenges over the next 15 years. Among the seventeen SDGs, Gender Equality (SDG5) is recognized as important for the achievement of the other 16 goals because gender inequality exists across education, employment opportunities, healthcare facilities, life expectancy, family life, and political participation, thereby holding back the capacity of half of the world's population to contribute to solutions to the global challenges. This bibliometric study explores gender balance and differences among first authors within SDG5 oriented research during the first 5 years after the implementation of SDG5 in 2016. Compared with other SDGs, the field of SDG5 produces relatively less scientific publications, which feature a dominance of female first authors. Within the field, male and female first authors focus on partly different topics. Potential readers show more interest in publications by female first authors. This investigation highlights the importance of increasing gender diversity in SDG5-related studies, which is helpful for the achievement of sustainable development.

The past 40 years have witnessed profound changes in the international connectivity and competitiveness of Mainland China’s scientific research. Based on publication data about Chinese researchers in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) from the Web of Science (WoS), this study aims to provide a birds-eye view of how social science research in Mainland China has internationalized over the past four decades. The findings show that the number of social science articles published by Chinese authors in international journals has experienced a noticeable increase over the period and the collaboration networks of researchers from Mainland China have broadened, with the number of articles with a Chinese first author showing a strong upward trend. In addition, findings show that Chinese scholars are published in a wider range of journals and there has been a steady increase in their appearance in higher impact journals (influenced in part by certain journals). Finally, different social science disciplines show various degrees of internationalization, with Psychology and Business, Economics, Planning accounting for a high proportion of international collaboration articles, while the proportion of Mainland China-led articles and Q1 articles are relatively higher in the areas of Education, Media & Information, and Community & Social Issues. This study provides a broad view from which to examine the internationalization process in Mainland China’s social science landscape in the last four decades while also noting some of the possible underlying explanations for these changes, thereby deepening our understanding of social science research stemming from the region.