Imbalanced phenomenon of regional research performance in mainland China

We evaluate and rank the regional research performance of mainland China in terms of universities indexed by the ESI database from 1998 to 2008. Two basic indicators, the number of papers and the number of citations are obtained from ESI. Preliminary results show that there is an apparently imbalanced distribution of regional research performance in terms of east, center and west regions, with strong, middle and weak weights, respectively. This is a severe imbalanced phenomenon in the regional development of higher education in mainland China. We conclude by encouraging a harmonious development of research resources in the eastern, central and western of mainland China.