Report on the Phase II Cluster (Group) Pilot Projects of China’s STM Journal Excellence Action Plan

Shuai Yan, Mark Robertson, and Na Rongqi (Eric) | June 2026 

Phase II of China’s Excellence Action Plan (EAP) for STM Journals was officially launched in September 2024, with 45 million RMB in annual funding allocated to an expanded set of 13 cluster (group) pilot projects — up from five in Phase I. Phase II moves beyond developing individual journals toward building a more public-interest-oriented, clustered, and digitally integrated publishing ecosystem — with the ambition of positioning China’s STM journals among the world’s top tier by 2035. 

This report profiles each of the 13 funded clusters, covering the organisations and publishers involved, the journals included, and the digital platforms being developed. It also identifies emerging issues in cluster governance and metadata quality, and outlines key trends shaping the development of China’s scholarly publishing ecosystem: consolidation and scale, technological transformation, internationalisation, diversified cluster models, and growing open access publishing activity. 

An earlier report by Yan Shuai et al. (2025) provides a full overview of all Phase II EAP initiatives. 

→ Yan, Shuai; Robertson, Mark; Na, Eric (2026). Report on the Phase II Cluster (Group) Pilot Projects of China’s STM Journal Excellence Action Plan. figshare. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32611143.v1  

→ Yan, Shuai; Robertson, Mark; Zhang, Tieming; Zhang, Xin; Ren, Shengli (2025). Report on Phase II of the Excellence Action Plan of China’s STM Journals. figshare. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28553246.v3