Nature periodically publishes articles that focus on aspects of science in the Asia-Pacific region. Below is a list of some of these features.
25 June 2025
Corporate research is a major part of the global science ecosystem, and all eyes are on the sector amid federal funding cuts in the United States. Around the world, spin-off success stories and strong innovation pipelines reveal the places where close ties between academia and industry are paying off.
23 April 2025
From personalized vaccines to next-generation screening technologies, the ways the world treats and detects cancer could shift dramatically in the coming years. But there are many challenges ahead, as countries deal with rising costs of oncology drugs, low participation rates in clinical trials and unanswered questions about the biology of the disease.
19 March 2025
Global energy spending has reached record levels, and with a significant focus on renewables. But renewable power is yet to meet demand in key areas, prolonging the world's reliance on fossil fuels. Artificial intelligence could provide strategies to accelerate the clean-energy transition, provided its own power needs are managed effectively.
11 December 2024
Materials science is a rapidly growing area of research in journals tracked by the Nature Index and one where the real-world applications are often an essential part of tackling global environmental and health challenges.
27 November 2024
Australia’s research ecosystem is facing unprecedented challenges. Government investment in R&D remains lower than in many leading science nations, and universities across the country are reporting dwindling enrolments.
21 November 2024
Our annual look at the world’s leading cities for research output in Nature Index journals shows China’s major urban centres are moving from strength to strength, but they are now also being joined by smaller provincial Chinese cities at the top of the rankings.
2 October 2024
Benefitting from advanced imaging and modelling techniques and genetic tools that enable targeted research, neuroscience has undergone remarkable progress in recent decades.
18 September 2024
The rapid adoption of chatbots such as ChatGPT in mainstream society have placed artificial intelligence (AI) front and centre of the public debate on science in the past two years.
21 August 2024
South Korea stands out among the leading countries in the Nature Index for its big investments in research and development and strong history of innovation.
05 June 2024
China's status at the summit of the Nature Index remains unrivalled as the gap between it and the United States grows.
13 March 2024
More money is being spent on medical R&D than ever before, but with few new drugs to show for it.
13 December 2023
Good science is not limited to wealthy countries and research in the global south is too often ignored, to the detriment of innovation and discovery everywhere.
08 November 2023
China’s rapid rise in the Nature Index is unparalleled, but where does it go to from here? Can the United States and India partner up to reach new heights?
06 September 2023
A cornerstone of scientific activity in many countries, cancer research is producing game-changing work for universal gain.
08 March 2023
Japan is the world’s third largest economy, but for years now it has lagged in science and research compared to smaller economies such as Germany and the United Kingdom.
14 December 2022
Gene therapy – the science of substituting faulty or missing genes for functioning versions to prevent genetic diseases – has been in and out of fashion for decades.
07 December 2022
Innovation – the practice of turning cutting edge basic research into inventions with real world application – is the driver of knowledge economies.
25 November 2022
This Index looks at the policy, politics and science behind the world’s leading cities for output of high quality research.
12 October 2022
The field of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics research is new and consequently it’s expanding at a rapid rate.
07 September 2022
The global energy crisis lends urgency to many nations’ plans to decarbonise, shifting from fossil fuels to greener options.
10 August 2022
With the right building blocks, nanoscience can revolutionize industries, whether it’s driving a new era in computing, boosting crop resilience or advancing medical innovations.
09 March 2022
With huge budgets, world-class facilities and a long history of scientific excellence, the leading five countries in the Nature Index (US, China, Germany, UK and Japan) also rely on collaborations to address global challenges.
08 December 2021
Their goals may be different, and so may the paths they are taking to reach them, but the universities aged 50 and under featured in this Nature Index supplement are proof that youth need not be a barrier to strong research performance.
17 November 2021
Key to Canada’s strength as a leading science nation is its high-quality research, informed by its vast natural resources. But the country is losing ground in areas where it held an early lead.
27 October 2021
COVID-19 has brought new urgency to the study of infectious disease. This Nature Index supplement shines a light on some of the research, and the people and institutions behind it, that aims to reduce the staggering human and economic cost of communicable disease.
25 September 2021
Many leading science cities are active in research related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This Nature Index supplement showcases how they are supporting climate change and clean energy targets, protecting oceans, coastal communities and food security.
30 June 2021
Researchers are rethinking the nature and potential of matter. From new metal mixes that form more efficient catalysts to bio-inspired super-black products, their work is driving advances in manufacturing, drug discovery and product design.
26 May 2021
China's successes in space exploration, quantum technologies and cutting-edge chemistry underline its superpower status in research, rivalling that of the United States. As the nation's science policy shifts towards self-sufficiency and talent repatriation, we see the impact of rising geopolitical tensions on collaborative articles with the US, and signs that its remarkable growth in research output in recent years is slowing down.
17 March 2021
Sustainability, climate-change mitigation, and biomedical science are key areas for future research prowess in the Asia-Pacific region. While COVID-19 travel restrictions have disrupted collaborations between far-flung nations, they have focused attention on vast opportunities for researchers in countries in close proximity and South and southeast Asia to work more closely together on new initiatives.
10 December 2020
As investments and revenues soar year-on-year and nations vie for leadership in the field of artificial intelligence, research output continues its steep, upward trajectory. But there are significant ethical and technical challenges to overcome.
26 November 2020
Although national science organizations are thriving under funding certainty, there are concerns that some universities will be left behind.
28 May 2020
This supplement investigates South Korea’s strategy to become a ‘first mover’ by investing in basic research grants and original discoveries.
30 April 2020
The Nature Index 2020 Annual Tables highlight the institutions and countries that dominated high quality research in the natural sciences in 2019 as tracked by Nature Index.
23 April 2020
This supplement features stories of success and challenges in the hard-fought and expensive race to increase survival rates. But it’s not all good news - improved treatments may still be out of reach in the countries where 70% of global cancer deaths occur.
12 December 2019
This supplement explores the materials that will give rise to the new industries of the future. It highlights the intriguing field of energy harvesting and profiles the early career stars who are expanding the physical world through new materials discoveries
21 November 2019
This supplement explores the effects of political instability and escalating trade tensions on US-China and UK-EU research collaborations, and highlights the most successful 'big science' players in high-energy physics, genomics and oncology
24 October 2019
Nature Index 2019 Young Universities profiles some of the most intriguing young universities in the world and highlights the research that’s putting them on the map, including treatments for paraplegia, tsunamis on Mars and medical microbots
16 May 2019
Nature Index 2019 Biomedical Sciences highlights scientists and institutions prominent in the ongoing research effort that will further transform our ideals of a healthy human life in the coming decades.
21 March 2019
Japan is relying on international collaboration as a way to arrest the decline in its contribution to global science, but will it be enough? Nature Index 2019 Japan seeks answers to that question.
13 December 2018
China’s rise is the story of the century in science. Its scientific output has already overtaken that of the United States, but on measures of quality, such as articles published in the high-quality journals tracked by the Nature Index, it still has a big gap to close. Some exceptional disciplines, though, are leading the way to overcoming the quality deficit.
1 November 2018
Nature Index 2018 Science Cities profiles five science cities that are leaders in their regions. But each is contending with problems of equity and engagement that need to be addressed to keep them strong.
20 September 2018
If ideas are the flames burning from the torches of discovery, scientists are the hands that hold them. Creative minds uphold the scientific enterprise.
28 June 2018
For every top ten country producer of Earth and environmental sciences except China, output has been declining. Climate change is the issue that looms largest.
22 March 2018
Has Japan’s contribution to high quality scientific output continued to decline?
7 December 2017
This supplement investigates the changing role of corporate institutions in the world of science and the costs and benefits to high-quality research of these evolving arrangements.
2 November 2017
This supplement reveals that the country’s output of high-quality research in the natural sciences has declined over the past five years, following on from long-term declines in federal funding for research and development.
19 October 2017
Science thrives in cities. With two-thirds of the global population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, cities will become even more distinctly the domain of knowledge and innovation.
28 September 2017
Saudi Arabia is already the scientific leader of the Arab world, but it is not standing still. Through investment in research and education – and a new focus on maximising the commercial value of its academic prowess – the country is beating a path to reducing its reliance on oil.
10 August 2017
This supplement examines the connection between high-quality research and the commercialization of new products and services.
25 May 2017
This report looks beyond China’s continued increase in publication output and examines how it holds up in other factors that contribute to a functioning research ecosystem.
23 March 2017
Japan’s status as a science superstar is vulnerable. This supplement examines Japan’s efforts to arrest the decline and return to form as an innovative nation.
17 November 2016
The supplement highlights some of the most fruitful collaborations between institutions and countries, such as those resulting from the bonds between China and the United States.
27 October 2016
The supplement highlights these countries’ quality natural science research.
28 July 2016
This supplement identifies the ascendant performers in the world of science.
28 April 2016
In 2015 Saudi Arabia had the largest growth of its region in the production of high-quality research tracked by the Nature Index, propelling the country into a leading position.
17 March 2016
Japan is among the top producers of high quality research in the Nature Index, but new analysis reveals this position is being challenged.
17 December 2015
Nature Index 2015 China reveals the country’s output of high quality science continues to grow – a trend that shows no signs of slowing.
12 November 2015
The supplement paints a picture of global research partnerships and yields insights into the power and impact of joint research.
13 November 2014
The Nature Index 2014 Global supplement provides a snapshot of results from the new Nature Index, comparing the countries and institutions around the world that contributed to some of the highest quality research during the previous calendar year.
10 August 2022
Japanese researchers and companies investing in new photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs) think halving laser-manufacturing energy consumption might be possible.
03 August 2022
Japan is not a country immediately associated with the word ‘tropical’.
19 January 2022
Startups and big data set to fuel genomic medicine in Korea
Genomic medicine is taking off in South Korea in a big way, thanks in large part to innovative startups and systems for collecting and analyzing big data.
10 November 2021
Chinese pharma sets its sights on first-in-class
China’s rapidly expanding pharmaceutical industry is pivoting from producing drugs that imitate to those that set agendas.
06 October 2021
Revitalizing the science of traditional medicinal plants
Enhanced technologies and research standards for plant research could help strengthen the contribution of traditional Chinese medicine to drug discovery.
21 July 2021
The long-term impacts of early health
Tackling issues like low birth weight could help reduce the incidence later in life of diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. So why isn’t more being done?
24 March 2021
Japanese hydrogen gamble
Japan’s massive investment in hydrogen energy is aimed at positioning the resource-poor nation as a world leader in the energy economy.
03 February 2021
The rich resources in Japan’s deep-sea muds
Vital to many expanding technologies, rare-earth deposits were identified in Japan’s deep-sea clays in 2013. Scientists have been contemplating the technical and environmental challenge this presents.
17 December 2020
Fresh twist for the future of food science
Japanese food scientists are creating new value through novel ways of utilizing food and ingredients that have potential to support a healthy planet and an ageing population.
3 December 2020
Rising a steep challenge
Japan's farming sector has been dealt a tricky hand, but necessity might just push its robotics and smart agriculture industry forward.
6 August 2020
Japan's bioeconomy built on a foundation of fermentation
With cells primed to drive key production processes and more sustainable economies, Japan’s strong history with fermentation research will help push ideas to commercialisation.
4 June 2020
A twisted ladder to prosperity
Genomic medicine is being harnessed to address southeast Asian health concerns and to help Thailand reach high-income status.
31 October 2019
Japan's gene therapy and genome editing boom
The timing is right, as intensified commercial interest collides with maturing research in these cutting-edge fields.
28 March 2019
Cracking the code of personalized medicine
South Korea is at the vanguard of a revolution in AI and big data healthcare.
15 November 2018
A race against time and old age
Nanomedicine is on the frontline of Japan’s efforts to revitalise its economy, and it may pre-emptively solve some of the world’s toughest problems to boot.
8 November 2018
Looking to the east
The future of vaccine research may be in Asia.
4 October 2018
A seismic shift
How Kobe rebuilt itself after a devastating earthquake and turned into a biotechnology hub.
22 March 2018
Reforming the system
Japan’s radical new program to boost just a handful of universities has precedents across the world.
8 February 2018
Entering a new era of space development
Businesses are increasingly investing in space exploration and development.
21 December 2017
Speeding up the sequencing
In the age of genomic big data, the worlds of medicine and IT are rapidly colliding.
15 January 2020
Taiwanese start-up detects an opportunity
Evolution of a company that uses spectroscopy techniques shines a light on business development in Taiwan.
18 October 2018
Western Australia’s science finds strength in its isolation
Deep local collaborations and research with regional character are powerful drivers in the state, one of the world’s most remote scientific communities.
11 October 2018
An alternative Japan experience
Meet the sides of Japanese cities that most international researchers never see.
21 December 2017
A smart place to work
Lower house prices, proximity to Tokyo, and a burgeoning R&D ecosystem are thrusting Kanagawa into the modern world from its ancient history.
14 December 2017
Scientists seeking to reverse or stall the effects of ageing are trying to make the leap from laboratory research to human trials.
7 December 2017
Catching up with carbon
Japan's historical leadership in the field of nanocarbon research is being challenged. Learn how it’s fighting to stay on top of a field it pioneered.
7 September 2017
Smarter, not harder
The young discipline of sports science is finding ways to stretch the boundaries of human biology
3 December 2014
Liver cancer is one of the most lethal forms of the disease: fewer than 40% of those who have it survive a year after diagnosis, even with treatment, and there are not many promising therapies in the pipeline. But if researchers can understand why some people with unhealthy livers develop cancer but others do not, they may be able to more effectively treat the disease — or even prevent it.
30 October 2014
A simple grain with global impact, rice has helped to build empires and fed revolutions. Now, scientists are starting a rice revolution of their own to feed a hungry world. By decoding genetics, improving breeding and, perhaps, reshaping the plant’s biology, researchers are working to take the world’s most vital crop into the future.
24 July 2014
The issue of how to evaluate the fruits of academic research confronts scientists and policymakers all over the world. Each country has its own set of circumstances depending on its research infrastructure and wealth as well as its economic, environmental and developmental objectives. Australia and New Zealand might be neighbours, but their programmes of research assessment are very different. Focusing on the tools and methods used to measure the quality and impact of science in Australia and New Zealand should inform similar debates throughout the scientific world.
