2017 tables: Countries/territories - life sciences

The 2017 tables are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016.

Table criteria

# Country/territory Share 2015 Share 2016 Count 2016 Change in Adjusted Share 2015-2016*
1 United States of America (USA) 8,918.54 8,474.11 11,106 -2.3%
2 United Kingdom (UK) 1,418.86 1,391.45 2,818 0.9%
3 Germany 1,239.32 1,244.84 2,572 3.3%
4 China 888.54 947.14 1,727 9.6%
5 Japan 764.14 784.20 1,310 5.6%
6 France 678.40 661.29 1,453 0.3%
7 Canada 643.74 574.31 1,176 -8.2%
8 Switzerland 360.71 408.02 935 16.3%
9 Australia 376.60 351.61 885 -4.0%
10 Netherlands 287.18 316.87 828 13.5%
11 Spain 298.62 257.38 667 -11.4%
12 Sweden 237.31 230.32 670 -0.2%
13 Italy 272.23 220.12 647 -16.8%
14 Israel 225.36 212.24 417 -3.1%
15 South Korea 206.92 185.09 378 -8.0%
16 Belgium 121.42 152.22 394 28.9%
17 Denmark 126.37 144.01 416 17.2%
18 Austria 114.07 126.68 373 14.2%
19 Singapore 110.77 98.78 277 -8.3%
20 Taiwan 81.50 93.86 180 18.5%
21 India 91.54 91.60 171 2.9%
22 Finland 70.58 66.44 235 -3.2%
23 Brazil 50.55 55.81 203 13.6%
24 Norway 56.89 52.32 207 -5.4%
25 Portugal 43.33 44.86 141 6.5%
26 New Zealand 33.51 36.16 118 11.0%
27 Ireland 36.42 33.81 117 -4.5%
28 Czech Republic 26.41 30.37 109 18.3%
29 Hungary 24.40 30.29 88 27.6%
30 Russia 32.73 28.61 151 -10.1%
31 Argentina 33.57 27.72 78 -15.1%
32 Mexico 18.55 22.64 71 25.6%
33 Poland 29.44 21.06 105 -26.4%
34 Greece 15.90 18.11 77 17.1%
35 South Africa 19.21 16.04 84 -14.1%
36 Chile 19.30 14.37 51 -23.4%
37 Saudi Arabia 12.32 12.65 106 5.6%
38 Turkey 6.25 9.38 62 54.3%
39 Iceland 8.46 9.25 49 12.6%
40 Estonia 7.57 9.08 64 23.4%
41 Panama 5.68 6.55 26 18.7%
42 Thailand 9.06 6.34 36 -28.0%
43 Luxembourg 2.14 5.95 15 186.3%
44 Croatia 4.41 5.21 40 21.4%
45 Colombia 4.63 4.99 37 10.7%
46 Qatar 0.61 3.80 29 543.2%
47 Slovenia 6.12 3.68 19 -38.2%
48 Kenya 4.55 3.62 32 -18.3%
49 Uruguay 2.80 3.30 11 20.9%
50 United Arab Emirates 3.39 3.29 23 0.0%

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.

*The change in adjusted Share accounts for the small annual variation in the total number of articles in Nature Index journals. Share values have been adjusted to 2021 levels to calculate the percentage change. For more information on the adjustment, please see the Adjusted metric explainer.