Annual Report to Identify 189 Global Engineering Fronts Released by Clarivate, the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Higher Education Press of China
A comprehensive outlook on engineering innovations
London, U.K. March 25, 2026. Clarivate Plc (NYSE: CLVT), a leading global provider of transformative intelligence, the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) and the Higher Education Press of China today released the Engineering Fronts 2025 report, identifying the most impactful global engineering research and development trends. The report was launched at a ceremony in Beijing and marks the ninth annual collaboration among these three organizations.
An engineering front is defined as a key forward-looking direction that is leading and exploratory. It significantly influences the future of engineering science and technology and serves as an important guide for fostering innovation. Engineering Fronts 2025 provides a data driven, expert validated overview of 189 global engineering fronts, including 94 engineering research fronts and 95 engineering development fronts, spanning nine major engineering fields.
Key highlights from Engineering Fronts 2025 include:
- Advanced Manufacturing & Materials: Breakthroughs in mechanical metamaterials, electromagnetic wave absorbing materials, flexible sensing materials for humanoid robots, and high-performance composites are enabling next-generation aerospace, robotics, and intelligent manufacturing.
- Digital & Intelligent Technologies: Rapid progress in AI-enabled engineering, large model-based fault diagnosis, intelligent control of unmanned systems, and integrated communication–sensing–computing networks is reshaping industrial systems and digital infrastructure.
- Energy Transition & Sustainability: Key fronts include direct seawater electrolysis for green hydrogen, high-energy-density all-solid-state batteries, methane emission reduction technologies, sustainable lithium recovery, and carbon-neutral industrial processes.
- Health & Life Sciences: Advances in multi‑omics clinical cohorts, personalized mRNA cancer vaccines, bio‑syncretic robotics, and intelligent medical systems are accelerating the shift toward precision medicine.
- Infrastructure & Urban Systems: Digital twins, AI-based performance prediction, and climate-resilient infrastructure technologies are redefining how cities and large-scale engineering systems are designed, built, and managed.
Sherif EL Shamy, Vice President, Consulting, Academia & Government, Clarivate, said: “Engineering fronts represent the most forward-looking and strategic directions in global science and technology. We are very pleased to collaborate with the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Higher Education Press of China again to deliver the Engineering Fronts 2025 report. Our comprehensive and curated data powers this program, allowing us to accurately identify these fronts for guiding innovation, cultivating new productive forces, and responding to global challenges.”
The report combines large‑scale data mining with multi‑round expert evaluation, drawing on research output from 12,840 academic journals and 65,558 international conferences collected from the Web of Science Core Collection, highly cited scientific publications from 2019–2024, patent analysis based on the Derwent Innovation database, contributions from nearly 1,000 academicians and experts across disciplines.
Learn more about this year’s report and the highlighted Engineering Fronts here.
About Clarivate
Clarivate is a leading global provider of transformative intelligence. We offer enriched data, insights & analytics, workflow solutions and expert services in the areas of Academia & Government, Intellectual Property and Life Sciences & Healthcare. For more information, please visit www.clarivate.com.
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Jack Wan, Director, External Communications
