By 2025, the proportion of Chinese citizens with scientific literacy will reach 16.74%, achieving development goals ahead of schedule

China News Service, Beijing, September 14 (Reporter Sun Zifa) reporter learned from the China Association for Science and Technology on September 14 that based on the citizen scientific literacy evaluation system with Chinese characteristics, the 15th national survey conducted by the China Association for Science and Technology in 2025 showed that the proportion of Chinese citizens with scientific literacy would reach 16.74% in 2025, achieving the development goal of exceeding 15% in 2025 set in the "National Scientific Literacy Action Plan (2021-2035)" more than a year ahead of schedule.

The survey shows that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the proportion of Chinese citizens with scientific literacy continued to accelerate, with annual increases of 1.19, 1.21, 1.23, and 1.37 percentage points respectively. The potential energy of science popularization continues to accumulate, laying a solid foundation for citizens’ scientific literacy to move to a higher level.

The 15th National Survey found through monitoring and evaluation of urban and rural areas, regions, and genders that the imbalance in the development of scientific literacy among various regions and groups has been significantly improved, and the quality of scientific literacy development continues to improve.

Among them, the proportion of urban residents and rural residents with scientific literacy reached 19.36% and 12.02% respectively, and the gap between urban and rural areas has narrowed for two consecutive years.

The proportion of citizens with scientific literacy in the eastern, central and western regions is 18.88%, 15.76% and 14.28% respectively, and the regional gap has narrowed for three consecutive years.

In terms of gender, the proportions of men and women with scientific literacy are 18.03% and 15.44% respectively. The gender gap has narrowed for four consecutive years.

Further through the graded evaluation, it was found that the hierarchical structure of the scientific quality of Chinese citizens has been further optimized.

Among Chinese citizens aged 18 to 69, the proportion of basic scientific literacy has reached 49.02%, nearly half; the proportion of scientific literacy has reached 16.74%; the proportion of advanced scientific literacy has increased to 2.50%.

Among them, the most noteworthy ones are the former shortcomings - farmers and the elderly. The proportion of scientific literacy reached 10.42% and 6.45% respectively, with an annual net increase of 2.33 and 1.71 percentage points.

Survey data also shows that Chinese citizens’ support for technological innovation has increased significantly. In 2025, the proportion of citizens who agree that "public understanding and support for technological innovation is the foundation for building a technologically powerful country" will increase to 85.4%, an increase of nearly 3 percentage points from 2020.

Artificial intelligence is one of the fields that attracts the most attention right now. Survey data shows that Chinese citizens’ acceptance of artificial intelligence has further increased and their attitudes have become more positive: 73.2% of citizens are in favor of more adoption of artificial intelligence technology in their lives, and 82.3% of citizens have confidence in the development of artificial intelligence in China.

At the same time, the proportion of citizens who hold a cautious attitude of "both expectations and worries" about the development of AI is 44.9%, and the proportion of citizens who hold an attitude of "concerns exceed expectations" is 8.8%, both of which have declined year-on-year in 2024.

Experts believe that this scientific attitude that embraces new technologies while maintaining rationality and prudence is itself a direct reflection of the improvement of scientific quality and will also provide stable social expectations for the healthy development of China's AI.