Chinese authorities’ aspirations for science and technology journals: a bibliometric study based on the High Starting Point New Journal Project of the China Science and Technology Journal Excellence Action Plan

Purpose: This study used journals selected for the High Starting Point New Journal Project as the research sample to systematically compare changes in core development indicators before and after funding and to clarify Chinese authorities’ main journal-development priorities and requirements for newly founded journals.Methods: Journal data were retrieved from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), Web of Science (WoS), and World Journal Clout Index (WJCI) databases. Wilcoxon signed rank tests with Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate corrections were applied to 14 bibliometric indicators.Results: After the funding period, the sample journals showed significant increases in article volume and the number of highly cited papers, indicating expanded publication scale and greater capacity to attract high-quality academic output. The Journal Impact Factor did not change significantly, whereas the average Journal Impact Factor percentile increased significantly; the Journal Citation Indicator showed a nominal increase that did not remain statistically significant after false discovery rate correction. The proportion of articles with non-Chinese authors decreased significantly. The number of author-origin countries or regions increased significantly, whereas the number of articles with non-Chinese authors did not change significantly.Conclusion: Chinese authorities’ primary expectation for newly founded journals appears to be that they serve the national scientific innovation system by consolidating their domestic development foundation, increasing their relative disciplinary influence and local service capacity, and then pursuing gradual, high-quality internationalization through steady expansion of global reach after stronger local development has been established. These findings provide empirical evidence that global publishers can use to refine development strategies for the Chinese market and that government agencies and academic organizations can use when launching new journals and designing supporting funding policies.