Britain has overtaken the US in the standard of its physics research, according to the Institute of Physics.

While the US does more work in the field, British studies have received more citations per paper, which puts the UK second in the world to Canada, the research found.

Dr Beth Taylor of the Institute of Physics told the Today programme's James Naughtie that it is the first time the UK has done this, despite the US being the "big beast in the field".

While this shows that UK physics is healthy, she said, we should be looking over our shoulder at the rest of the world and in particular China, whose share of the market has shot from eight to 18% in the last 10 years.

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