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BEIJING, March 29 (Xinhua) -- China will use its science fund to further develop basic science research and elevate the reputation of its academic papers, scientists, cutting-edge programs and research achievements.

For the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), the science fund will support the exposure of academic papers, to make them the second most cited globally; 10 percent of the world's highly-cited scientists, and the average number of thesis being cited approaching the global average, Yang Wei, head of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) that manages the fund, said Tuesday.

Other goals include conducting around 10 cutting-edge programs every year, more Chinese scientists making their way into core leadership of the world's major academic organizations, and achieving up to five significant research achievements, with major original contributions from Chinese scientists, every year, Yang said.

During the 2011-2015 period, the science fund financed nearly 200,000 programs, with around 88.8 billion yuan (13.6 billion U.S. dollars) from state revenue and more than 1.7 billion yuan from other sources, NSFC figures showed.

In 2014, China had 5,505 scientific theses carried by the most recognized international periodicals, ranking second in the world, 55.6 percent of which received funding from the science fund, according to the NSFC.

In 2016, the science fund has, thus far, received 172,913 applications, up 4.42 percent year-on-year.