China’s genomics giant Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) ranks 12th among the world’s most productive enterprises with high-quality research output, according to Nature Index 2017 Science Inc., ThePaper.cn reported on Dec. 7.

Four others Chinese corporations, including ChemChina, China Electronics Technology Group Corp. (CETC), China Shipbuilding Industry Corp. (CSIC), and FiberHome also stand among the world’s top 100 enterprises.

The index shows that American corporations contributed almost half to global scientific achievements made by entrepreneurs from 2012 to 2016, followed by Japan (10.65 percent), Britain (6.07 percent), China (5.03 percent), and Germany (4.99 percent).

It also pointed out that collaboration between enterprises and academic or government scientific research institutions has doubled from 12,672 to 25,962 during the period. The collaboration score between BGI and the University of Copenhagen ranks 4th in the world.

However, David Swinbanks, founder of Natural Index, stressed while enhancing cooperation between enterprises and academic institutions has its merits, balance between basic research and applied research of the institutions might be disturbed in the long run.

The founder said that many important innovative achievements are made based on exploratory research of previous studies.