2018 tables: Countries/territories - life sciences

The 2018 tables are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017.

Table criteria

# Country/territory Share 2016 Share 2017 Count 2017 Change in Adjusted Share 2016-2017*
1 United States of America (USA) 8,474.11 8,639.40 11,397 -0.1%
2 United Kingdom (UK) 1,391.45 1,396.68 2,810 -1.7%
3 Germany 1,244.84 1,224.99 2,492 -3.6%
4 China 947.14 1,190.28 2,145 23.1%
5 Japan 784.20 697.41 1,229 -12.9%
6 France 661.29 684.06 1,447 1.3%
7 Canada 574.31 561.73 1,251 -4.2%
8 Switzerland 408.02 408.63 975 -1.9%
9 Australia 351.61 395.47 904 10.2%
10 Netherlands 316.87 290.23 826 -10.3%
11 Spain 257.38 258.64 650 -1.6%
12 Sweden 230.32 246.24 670 4.7%
13 Italy 220.12 236.56 672 5.3%
14 Israel 212.24 211.25 439 -2.5%
15 South Korea 185.09 184.14 376 -2.5%
16 Austria 126.68 127.72 343 -1.2%
17 Belgium 152.22 126.76 378 -18.4%
18 Denmark 144.01 119.33 396 -18.8%
19 Singapore 98.78 116.36 297 15.4%
20 India 91.60 97.11 197 3.9%
21 Taiwan 93.86 80.54 171 -15.9%
22 Finland 66.44 72.14 219 6.4%
23 Norway 52.32 64.94 227 21.6%
24 Brazil 55.81 61.84 196 8.5%
25 Portugal 44.86 44.01 153 -3.9%
26 Czech Republic 30.37 41.99 132 35.5%
27 New Zealand 36.16 34.19 103 -7.4%
28 Ireland 33.81 30.81 118 -10.7%
29 Russia 28.61 27.66 135 -5.3%
30 Poland 21.06 27.27 110 26.9%
31 Hungary 30.29 26.98 78 -12.7%
32 Argentina 27.72 25.85 90 -8.7%
33 Mexico 22.64 20.76 87 -10.2%
34 South Africa 16.04 19.21 102 17.3%
35 Greece 18.11 18.96 82 2.6%
36 Saudi Arabia 12.65 16.94 100 31.2%
37 Iceland 9.25 14.24 57 50.7%
38 Chile 14.37 13.93 52 -5.0%
39 Estonia 9.08 8.00 44 -13.6%
40 Turkey 9.38 7.64 51 -20.2%
41 Slovenia 3.68 7.52 21 100.5%
42 Thailand 6.34 7.50 50 15.8%
43 Panama 6.55 6.22 37 -6.9%
44 Iran 2.97 5.39 30 77.5%
45 Croatia 5.21 4.95 33 -6.9%
46 United Arab Emirates 3.29 3.65 28 8.8%
47 Kenya 3.62 3.30 19 -10.7%
48 Luxembourg 5.95 3.25 21 -46.5%
49 Colombia 4.99 3.22 35 -36.8%
50 Pakistan 2.67 2.95 26 8.2%

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.