The news from West Asia is often about conflict. Hostilities are played out across borders and within countries. But the picture painted by data in the Nature Index of the regional science landscape shows a dynamic, yet far more collaborative scene.

Israel is the leading science powerhouse in West Asia (see 'Countries' weighted fractional count'). With an article count (AC) over 1,000, its institutions have published more papers in the index than all other regional countries combined. Its research profile is comparable to those of Western countries, for example its publishing record in Science and Nature is similar to Canada and Australia. It has the highest ratio of researchers to population in the region, and the index reveals that Israel's scientists are amongst the most efficient in terms of weighted fractional count (WFC) per researcher (see 'Researcher efficiency').

In 2012, Israel spent 3.9% of GDP on research and development (R&D), a higher percentage than any other country in the region and among the top five globally. Benjamin Geiger, chair of the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), which supports academic research in Israel, notes that this percentage has declined from a high of 4.2% in 2009. This is not a real decrease in funding but the result of vigorous economic growth: Israel's GDP his risen by 41% since 2009. Manuel Trajtenberg, chair of Israel's planning and budgeting committee, says this increase is seen in all areas of science spending, “The higher education budget was US$1.8 billion in 2010, it is now US$2.6 billion; adjusting for wage inflation, it would be an increase in real terms of 33% in four years.” Geiger adds that, during this time, the ISF budget has also increased, from US$80.2 million to US$138.3 million.

Despite its sophisticated output, Israel's scientific growth may have stalled: its WFC in the index is unchanged since 2012, and it has contributed fewer articles in total. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, is a distant second in terms of numbers, but is ramping up its high-quality scientific output. The wealthiest country in the region, Saudi Arabia is increasing its proportional R&D spend too – now approaching 1% of GDP, up from just 0.07% five years ago. And according to the index data, Saudi Arabia is one of the most efficient countries at getting high-quality science returns for its R&D spend (see 'Global overview', page S56).

Some institutes in Saudi Arabia improve their publishing figures by offering attractive packages to overseas researchers, who spend a few weeks or months in the kingdom and add a local affiliation to their papers. This practice shows up in the Nature Index as an unusually high ratio of AC to WFC, because of the higher number of joint affiliations each researcher has. King Abdulaziz University, for example, has an AC of 121 but a WFC of 9.96; other institutions in the index from across the world with the same AC typically have WFCs three-times higher.

Keeping it physical

Saudi Arabia's institution with the highest WFC (51.65) is King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a graduate level university specialising in science and engineering. Located by the Red Sea, KAUST boasts some of the best equipped laboratories and facilities in the region, including one of the fastest supercomputers in West Asia.

KAUST has been actively recruiting top researchers. At its inauguration in 2009, KAUST had 65 faculty hired from different universities around the world, mostly at the assistant professor level; today there are 136. “We are hiring people who are higher calibre. We are still in a growth phase and we are very careful not to grow too fast,” says Jean Frechet, vice president for research at KAUST. “We want to grow in quality before quantity, and we want to do it right.”

Frechet himself was recruited from the University of California, Berkeley. When he was approached in 2009, he refused an offer because he had never heard of KAUST.

But he changed his mind after visiting the university, seeing the facilities and meeting other faculty members. “It was very exciting”, he recalls. “Sometimes you get the opportunity to do something that you will not get again.”

The region's institute with the highest WFC is the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

We do not know the next big thing in science, but we can know the outstanding scientists.

Notably, it has published 12 papers in Nature and Science, more than all other institutes in the region, and papers in these journals comprise 4.4% of its output, compared to 0.6% for KAUST. Such a record is the result of progressive hiring policies, says Daniel Zajfman, president of the Weizmann Institute. “We do not know what the next important thing in science is, but we can know who are the outstanding scientists.”

Saudi Arabia is characterized by material science resources.

KAUST and Weizmann have very different research profiles. Life sciences research at KAUST is scant, as it is across Saudi Arabia (see 'Research strengths'), whereas the Israeli institute has a more even split between chemistry and life and physical sciences. “Saudi Arabia is very much characterized by material science due to its natural resources,” explains Frechet, adding that KAUST modelled itself on the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which is also heavily focused on physical sciences.

The Weizmann Institute's science is also much more visible on social media, with five papers (four in the life sciences) receiving a score on altmetrics.com — a new measure of a paper's impact, determined by article views, downloads and references in social media and news sources — in excess of 100. Its top article was a Nature paper authored by three Weizmann researchers collaborating with six researchers from the University of Cambridge and the United Kingdom's Babraham Institute. This paper challenged previous views about the shape of chromosomes. In contrast, KAUST's highest paper achieved a score of 47 for describing a new material for scrubbing carbon dioxide from the air.boxed-text