"The plan's science and technology components contain really important ingredients. It sets out a good ambition for the country to move toward and, importantly, it provides the means to carry out that work," Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) sets "good ambitions" for the country's scientific development and provides pathways to achieve them, said Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature.
First published in 1869, Nature is the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal. Appointed editor-in-chief of Nature in 2018, Skipper became the first woman to lead the prestigious journal.
"The plan's science and technology components contain really important ingredients. It sets out a good ambition for the country to move toward and, importantly, it provides the means to carry out that work," Skipper told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
"The first thing to highlight is the commitment to continuing funding science," she said, referring to China's target of raising its nationwide research and development spending by an average of at least 7 percent annually.
"It's an important signal for the research community that the government understands that science needs financial support and that it's considered to be an important part of the growth of a nation," she said.
"Another thing that really stands out is the clear recognition that science today needs to be multidisciplinary, and that some of the most important solutions are going to come from many disciplines coming together and at the intersection of disciplines," the editor-in-chief said, adding that this approach is insightful and forward-looking.
Skipper noted that while significant innovation is already occurring in China's private sector, she deemed the emphasis on integrating the private sector with the public sector and universities in research collaboration as particularly important. "These different sectors have their own strengths," she said.
"The third point is the recognition of the opportunity that lies in fundamental research," she said. "We know that fundamental research often, given enough time, leads to real applications and transformational discoveries."
Regarding artificial intelligence (AI) development and regulation, Skipper said while AI is an important tool, one of the open questions can be "Is AI just going to make us faster but less imaginative?" It is important to regulate AI, but she said there will be a long way to go to come to an agreement across the globe on what the regulation needs to be.
She mentioned China's proposal to build the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, saying that the world needs "a global framework" that strikes a balance between managing risks and promoting innovation.
Skipper has been following the research coming out of China for a long time since she became an editor.
When she first joined Nature Publishing Group in the early 2000s, research papers from China published in Nature were extremely rare, and she recalled perhaps only one or two per year. In 2025, however, there were over 200 research papers published in Nature by authors based in China.
"China is now the number one producer of research publications right across the board," she said, adding that her focus was not merely on quantity but on quality, which she noted was unequivocally present in research papers from China.
The latest Nature Index China supplement, released in late March, shows that China remains the world's leading contributor to high-quality research and continues to extend its lead in the Index. The index tracks research articles published in 145 leading natural-science and health-science journals, and is widely used as a key indicator of institutional research performance.
The editor-in-chief also noted that China's 15th Five-Year Plan proposes fostering an open and innovative ecosystem with global competitiveness, and supporting joint efforts by scientists from around the world to tackle fundamental and novel scientific challenges.
Open science and collaboration, she said, are crucial for scientific development, as openness enhances trust in the research that is done and increases its robustness.
"If China can be a leader in that open exchange of research, that would be a great example for the research community," Skipper said.
(Video reporters: Lyu Yanhao, Huang Kun, Guo Chen and Liu Runzhi; video editors: Zheng Jinqiang)■
