2016 tables: Countries/territories - physical sciences

The 2016 tables are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015.

Table criteria

# Country/territory Share 2015 Count 2015
1 United States of America (USA) 5,321.28 7,638
2 China 2,228.52 3,409
3 Germany 1,674.50 3,182
4 Japan 1,094.93 1,781
5 United Kingdom (UK) 1,074.61 2,316
6 France 871.71 1,871
7 South Korea 688.52 1,109
8 Italy 559.21 1,305
9 Switzerland 495.94 1,227
10 Canada 407.46 864
11 Spain 375.30 1,040
12 India 326.92 571
13 Australia 298.01 686
14 Netherlands 282.16 763
15 Russia 252.82 791
16 Israel 227.15 501
17 Singapore 225.66 426
18 Sweden 201.50 538
19 Taiwan 182.56 464
20 Belgium 149.57 409
21 Poland 127.74 481
22 Austria 125.14 403
23 Brazil 123.46 436
24 Denmark 113.32 362
25 Finland 73.60 241
26 Chile 66.39 277
27 Czech Republic 51.02 300
28 Iran 50.55 106
29 Greece 45.13 243
30 Hungary 43.47 189
31 Portugal 41.77 229
32 Saudi Arabia 40.10 186
33 Argentina 39.08 157
34 Ireland 33.74 183
35 Mexico 31.43 162
36 South Africa 30.23 164
37 Turkey 29.70 219
38 Slovenia 27.73 158
39 Norway 23.35 148
40 Ukraine 22.36 170
41 Thailand 17.04 97
42 Pakistan 17.03 93
43 Romania 16.48 174
44 New Zealand 15.79 82
45 Croatia 11.33 99
46 Serbia 10.07 140
47 Colombia 8.99 176
48 Cyprus 8.11 52
49 Armenia 6.82 147
50 Slovakia 6.46 112

Footnote

Each year, the Nature Index publishes tables based on counts of high-quality research outputs in the previous calendar year. Users please note:

  1. The data behind the tables are based on a relatively small proportion of total research papers, they cover the natural sciences only and outputs are non-normalized (that is, they don’t reflect the size of the country or institution, or its overall research output).
  2. The Nature Index is one indicator of institutional research performance. The metrics of Count and Share used to order Nature Index listings are based on an institution’s or country’s publication output in 82 natural-science journals, selected on reputation by an independent panel of leading scientists in their fields.
  3. Nature Index recognizes that many other factors must be taken into account when considering research quality and institutional performance; Nature Index metrics alone should not be used to assess institutions or individuals.
  4. Nature Index data and methods are transparent and available under a creative commons licence at nature.com/nature-index/.

The Nature Index database undergoes regular updating, corrections, adjustment of institutional hierarchies, and removal of retracted papers and thus the live website can differ from the frozen annual tables.