BEIJING, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- China ranked third worldwide in citations of science and technology papers by the country's researchers, a government think tank revealed on Wednesday.

Among the world's most-cited papers in the past decade, Chinese scientists contributed 16,900 papers, or 12.8 percent of the global share, said a report by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

China ranked second in citations worldwide in eight fields including mathematics, medicine and agricultural sciences, according to the institute.

China moved up one spot in rank from the fourth in 2015, with just the United States and Britain ahead in the rankings this year, the institute said.

A total of 296,800 scientific papers indexed by the internationally recognized Science Citation Index have come from Chinese researchers, the second-highest number worldwide, according to the report.