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LONDON, May 25 (Xinhua) -- China not only continues to increase its global share of research papers, the percentage of these papers that are co-authored with an international peer has risen to a new level as well, according to the Nature Index 2017 China supplement released on Thursday.

The Nature Index is a database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 68 high-quality science journals. The database is compiled by Nature Research.

The supplement looks beyond China's impressive performance in key metrics and examines how the country holds up in other measures of a functioning research ecosystem, such as willingness to make data and research open, science communication and sound science policy.

Until 2014, less than a fifth of China's papers in the Web of Science were co-authored with an international peer, according to the supplement. But in 2016, its percentage of international papers has increased to 24 percent, though still lagging behind Germany, the U.S. and the UK in that measure. And in journals included in the Nature Index, international collaborations make up just over 50 percent of China's papers.

Over the past two decades, China's scientific community has started to embrace open science, increasing its number of data repositories and open-access journals, according to the supplement.

However, strong policies and changes to academic culture are needed before science in the country can become fully open and transparent, and cultural change is also needed to boost participation in science communication among Chinese researchers, the supplement also said.