Nature Index

The Nature Index is a database that tracks institutions and countries and their scientific output since its introduction in 2016. Each year, Nature Index ranks the leading institutions (which can be companies, universities, government agencies, research institutes, or NGOs) and countries by the number of scientific articles and papers published in leading journals. This ranking can also be categorized by individual fields of research such as life sciences, chemistry, physics, or earth sciences, with different institutions leading in each. The Nature Index was conceived by Nature Research. In total, more than 10,000 institutions are listed in the Nature Index.

Methodology[]

The Nature Index attempts to objectively measure the scientific output of institutions and countries, taking into account differences in quality. Therefore, only articles published in 82 selected high-quality journals are counted. These journals are selected by an independent committee. If authors from several institutions and/or countries are involved in a scientific article, it is divided accordingly, assuming that all researchers were equally involved in the article.^[1]^[2]

Top institutions[]

The top 25 institutions with the highest share of articles published in scientific journals according to the Nature Index 2021, which is valid for the calendar year 2020:^[3]

Rank	Institution	Country	Total share
1	Chinese Academy of Sciences	China	1.887%
2	Harvard University	United States	0.927%
3	Max Planck Society	Germany	0.795%
4	French National Centre for Scientific Research	France	0.712%
5	Stanford University	United States	0.638%
6	Helmholtz Association	Germany	0.580%
7	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States	0.526%
8	University of Tokyo	Japan	0.462%
9	University of Oxford	United Kingdom	0.459%
10	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom	0.456%
11	University of Science and Technology of China	China	0.448%
12	Peking University	China	0.446%
13	University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences	China	0.425%
14	Nanjing University	China	0.418%
15	National Institutes of Health	United States	0.401%
16	University of Michigan	United States	0.398%
17	University of California, Berkeley	United States	0.395%
18	Tsinghua University	China	0.394%
19	ETH Zurich	Switzerland	0.378%
20	Yale University	United States	0.356%
21	University of Toronto	Canada	0.343%
22	Zhejiang University	China	0.342%
23	University of California, San Diego	United States	0.339%
24	University of California, Los Angeles	United States	0.338%
25	Columbia University	United States	0.331%

Top countries[]

The top 25 countries with the highest share of articles published in scientific journals according to the Nature Index 2021, which is valid for the calendar year 2020.^[4]

Rank	Country	Total share
1	United States	20.677%
2	China	14.256%
3	Germany	4.750%
4	United Kingdom	3.874%
5	Japan	3.279%
6	France	2.224%
7	Canada	1.626%
8	South Korea	1.520%
9	Switzerland	1.442%
10	Australia	1.310%
11	Spain	1.239%
12	Italy	1.134%
13	India	1.039%
14	Netherlands	0.972%
15	Sweden	0.699%
16	Israel	0.642%
17	Singapore	0.635%
18	Russia	0.534%
19	Belgium	0.433%
20	Taiwan	0.421%
21	Denmark	0.409%
22	Austria	0.377%
23	Brazil	0.308%
24	Poland	0.271%
25	Czech Republic	0.222%