2016 Research Leaders: Leading academic institutions in Nature & Science

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

Table criteria

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Position Institution Share 2015 Count 2015
1 Harvard University, United States of America (USA) 75.33 202
2 Stanford University, United States of America (USA) 43.70 115
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States of America (USA) 35.48 139
4 University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), United States of America (USA) 31.50 106
5 Yale University, United States of America (USA) 22.15 66
6 Princeton University, United States of America (USA) 19.87 50
7 California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States of America (USA) 19.37 74
8 Columbia University in the City of New York (CU), United States of America (USA) 19.16 73
9 University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States of America (USA) 18.52 65
10 University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK) 17.65 81
11 University of Washington (UW), United States of America (USA) 17.46 65
12 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland 17.08 50
13 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK) 17.04 74
14 University of Toronto (U of T), Canada 14.23 43
15 Johns Hopkins University (JHU), United States of America (USA) 13.18 52
16 University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), United States of America (USA) 12.74 43
17 The University of Chicago (UChicago), United States of America (USA) 12.14 49
18 Tsinghua University, China 12.13 30
19 The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan 12.02 36
20 Cornell University, United States of America (USA) 11.83 47
21 Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), United States of America (USA) 11.79 35
22 UCL, United Kingdom (UK) 11.24 46
23 University of Pennsylvania (Penn), United States of America (USA) 11.15 35
24 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States of America (USA) 10.46 47
25 University of Michigan (U-M), United States of America (USA) 10.20 56
26 The Rockefeller University, United States of America (USA) 9.90 28
27 Northwestern University (NU), United States of America (USA) 9.14 25
28 Duke University, United States of America (USA) 9.08 25
29 The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern Medical Center), United States of America (USA) 8.94 21
30 New York University (NYU), United States of America (USA) 8.69 26
31 University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), United States of America (USA) 8.53 49
32 Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), United States of America (USA) 8.42 24
33 University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder), United States of America (USA) 8.00 36
34 Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), Israel 7.93 17
35 University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), United States of America (USA) 6.98 26
36 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), United States of America (USA) 6.87 26
37 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), United States of America (USA) 6.65 27
38 University of Basel (UB), Switzerland 6.08 20
39 University of Bristol (UoB), United Kingdom (UK) 5.84 26
40 University of Minnesota (UMN), United States of America (USA) 5.67 35
41 Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (UK) 5.48 46
42 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland 5.23 15
43 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), United States of America (USA) 5.18 33
44 The University of Manchester (UoM), United Kingdom (UK) 5.18 16
45 University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark 4.96 32
46 Australian National University (ANU), Australia 4.78 23
47 University of Bern (UniBE), Switzerland 4.65 28
48 The University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada 4.35 18
49 The University of Arizona (Arizona), United States of America (USA) 4.32 36
50 Heidelberg University (Uni Heidelberg), Germany 4.14 29
51 The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, United States of America (USA) 4.11 13
52 The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (UK) 4.06 23
53 University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), United States of America (USA) 4.05 32
54 Sorbonne University, France 4.01 54
55 Oregon State University, United States of America (USA) 3.93 14
56 University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Chan Medical School), United States of America (USA) 3.90 22
57 The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia 3.90 22
58 University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), United States of America (USA) 3.86 26
59 Paris Cité University, France 3.85 55
60 University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland 3.81 24
61 Utrecht University (UU), Netherlands 3.78 29
62 University of Virginia (UVA), United States of America (USA) 3.74 20
63 Uppsala University (UU), Sweden 3.65 30
64 Peking University (PKU), China 3.62 24
65 Michigan State University (MSU), United States of America (USA) 3.52 22
66 Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), Germany 3.50 26
67 University of York, United Kingdom (UK) 3.38 10
68 National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore 3.37 19
69 Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), South Korea 3.33 9
70 University of California, Davis (UC Davis), United States of America (USA) 3.31 22
71 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (RU), United States of America (USA) 3.31 29
72 The University of Georgia (UGA), United States of America (USA) 3.30 15
73 The City University of New York (CUNY), United States of America (USA) 3.25 11
74 The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), United States of America (USA) 3.22 31
75 Karolinska Institute (KI), Sweden 3.18 22
76 Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium 3.18 18
77 University of Liverpool, United Kingdom (UK) 3.13 19
78 Osaka University, Japan 3.10 11
79 Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), United States of America (USA) 3.09 8
80 Goethe University Frankfurt (GU), Germany 3.05 8
81 University of California, Irvine (UCI), United States of America (USA) 3.03 13
82 Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway 2.96 9
83 State University of New York at Stony Brook (SUNY Stony Brook), United States of America (USA) 2.93 21
84 The University of Utah (Utah), United States of America (USA) 2.89 17
85 Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany 2.87 19
86 Dartmouth College, United States of America (USA) 2.86 8
87 Radboud University Nijmegen (RU), Netherlands 2.85 25
88 Université PSL, France 2.83 42
89 University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland 2.78 26
90 University of Southern California (USC), United States of America (USA) 2.75 24
91 University of Göttingen, Germany 2.69 11
92 Arizona State University (ASU), United States of America (USA) 2.66 14
93 Brandeis University, United States of America (USA) 2.61 5
94 University of Rochester (UR), United States of America (USA) 2.60 8
95 University of Paris-Saclay, France 2.52 38
96 The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), United States of America (USA) 2.51 12
97 University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UH Mānoa), United States of America (USA) 2.46 29
98 University of Connecticut (UConn), United States of America (USA) 2.45 11
99 University of Vienna, Austria 2.42 13
100 Stockholm University, Sweden 2.34 30

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 and health 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 145 natural-science and health-science journals. The journals were selected on reputation by an independent panel of leading scientists in their fields. The list is reviewed periodically and journals may be removed or added. Articles from eLife were no longer included in the Nature Index from 2023 after the journal changed its publishing model.
  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/.
  5. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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 research leaders.


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