Nature Publishing Index
Introduction to the Index
The Nature Publishing Index ranks institutions according to the number of primary research articles they publish in Nature journals. Nature and its family of Nature-branded sister journals is world-renowned as the pre-eminent platform for publication of the very best international research, and it is fitting that this portfolio of high quality journals serve as a benchmark for research success and achievement.
There are many ways to assess the research output of institutions, and the Nature Publishing Index is just one that should be used alongside many. Users can drill down to find the abstracts of individual papers that make up the Index allowing deep analysis of where some of the best research across a broad range of fields is coming from.
However, there are caveats that must be applied in interpreting the Index. For instance, Nature journals, although covering a broad spectrum of basic research in the life sciences, physical and chemical sciences, provide relatively limited coverage of applied sciences, engineering and clinical medicine. The Index should therefore be viewed as primarily an index of high quality basic and not applied research (although there are exceptions such as the journal Nature Photonics, based in Tokyo, which covers both domains).
Corrected count
The corrected count is a score that takes into account the number of affiliated institutions per author and the percentage of authors per institution. It is a decimal fraction up to a maximum of one calculated for each paper for a given institution or country affiliated with the paper, by taking into account the percentage of authors of the paper from that institution or country. All authors are assumed to contribute equally to corrected count, and an author with multiple affiliations is assumed to be divided equally among those affiliations. When an author gives a "present address", "permanent address" or "current address" that affiliation is assumed to not be involved in that author's contribution to the paper and is not included in the corrected count. The rules governing the calculation of corrected counts with respect to the way affiliations are presented are expanded regularly to account for new scenarios and any such additions to the rules are added to the footnotes to the tables.
Articles
The number of articles reflects the total number of articles with which a particular institution or country is affiliated according to the stated affiliations of authors in each publication. Institutions and countries are counted once per article. Advance online publications are not included until assigned issue and page numbers. Articles consist of Research Articles, Letters and Brief Communications published in Nature journals.
Nature Publishing Index - Global Top 100 (BETA)
Simultaneous with release of the 2011 Asia-Pacific rankings of the Nature Publishing Index, Nature Publishing Group (NPG) has updated the beta website that ranks the top one hundred institutions in the world according to their output of papers in Nature primary research journals. The index, called the Nature Publishing Index Global Top 100 (BETA), gives an indication of where some of the best research in the world is being carried out across the broad range of fields encompassed by NPG’s 17 Nature-branded primary research titles in life sciences, physics, chemistry, materials, nanotechnology, photonics and geoscience.
Institutions in the United States and Europe dominate with US institutions occupying thirty three of the top fifty positions and Harvard University the number one slot. But Asia has quite strong representation with thirteen slots, seven of them institutions in Japan. The University of Tokyo, which is number one in the Asia-Pacific rankings, is number five in the global top one hundred followed by Kyoto University at 20, The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) at 23, RIKEN at 30, Osaka University at 35, Seoul National University at 52, Tohoku University at 53, The University of Melbourne at 64, Nagoya University at 66, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) at 71, University of Science and Technology of China at 76, the University of Queensland at 86 and Peking University at 94. With the quantity and quality of research produced by scientists in the Asia-Pacific increasing year-on-year it is reasonable to expect that more institutions from the region will feature in the top echelons of the global Nature Publishing Index before long.
Nature Publishing Index Asia-Pacific
The Nature Publishing Index Asia-Pacific tracks research published in Nature journals from the Asia-Pacific region during the past 12 months, and is updated weekly. The Index provides many different options for users to delve into the data: users can analyze data by institution, country or Nature journal, and can access historical data and graphs of historical performance. The ‘Latest research’ section contains a complete list of all the articles published in the past month with an author from the Asia-Pacific.
Register for weekly Index e-alerts to get the latest updates.
Registrants can also download a PDF of the complete Nature Publishing Index 2011 Asia-Pacific publication. The publication is based on data from the Nature Publishing Index Asia-Pacific for the period between 1 January and 31 December 2011, and offers insight and analysis into the performance of all Asia-Pacific nations and territories appearing in the Index during that time. The magazine also offers a number of features not available on the Index website itself, such as year on year analysis, as well as introductions to the top ten research institutions from the top countries in the Asia-Pacific region in 2011 as judged by the Nature Publishing Index Asia-Pacific. Additional features include a guide to how to get the best out of the Index and a comprehensive list of the publishing records of the top five institutions in Nature and each of the 16 Nature sister journals. The magazine also includes a comprehensive ranking of the top 200 institutions from the Asia-Pacific region.
Nature Publishing Index China
The Nature Publishing Index 2010 China details a dramatic rise in the quality of research being published by China. Published as a supplement to Nature, the 2010 Index for China ranks research institutions and cities in mainland China. The ranking is based on outputs in Nature research journals in 2010 with comparative data for 2009. The supplement also presents data from other leading journals – Science, Cell, NEJM and The Lancet – showing similar rises in quality output from China.
Registrants can also download a PDF of the complete Nature Publishing Index 2010 China publication. The publication is based on data from the Nature Publishing Index China for the period between 1 January and 31 December 2010, the Index is updated weekly as part of the Nature Publishing Index Asia-Pacific.
Feedback and comments regarding the Nature Publishing Index Asia-Pacific can be sent to .
