Search research

Global scientific publication output experienced an exponential increase between 2000 and 2025.

Total DOI-indexed articles rose from 1,508,675 in 2000 to 7,233,887 in 2025, representing a 4.8-fold increase (+379.5% cumulative growth) with a fitted exponential rate of 6.4% per year.

OpenAlex data validates prior proprietary bibliometric findings on scientific article growth between 2016 and 2022.

Using OpenAlex, researchers found 48.1% cumulative growth (from 3.85M to 5.70M articles) and a fitted exponential rate of 6.9%/yr from 2016 to 2022, aligning closely with Hanson et al.'s prior Scopus-based finding of 47% cumulative growth.

China surpassed the United States in absolute publication output and global share in 2022.

In 2022, China produced 891,175 articles (15.6% global share) compared to the US's 794,008 articles (13.9%). By 2025, China produced 1.18M articles (16.3%) versus the US's 947K (13.1%).