2019 tables: Countries/territories - life sciences

The 2019 tables are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018.

Table criteria

# Country/territory Share 2017 Share 2018 Count 2018 Change in Adjusted Share 2017-2018*
1 United States of America (USA) 8,639.40 9,103.12 12,192 -2.0%
2 United Kingdom (UK) 1,396.68 1,565.62 3,181 4.2%
3 China 1,190.28 1,450.08 2,554 13.3%
4 Germany 1,224.99 1,334.96 2,791 1.3%
5 Japan 697.41 723.87 1,303 -3.5%
6 France 684.06 673.87 1,547 -8.4%
7 Canada 561.73 602.67 1,335 -0.3%
8 Australia 395.47 460.92 1,066 8.4%
9 Switzerland 408.63 454.09 1,079 3.3%
10 Netherlands 290.23 312.62 916 0.1%
11 Spain 258.64 287.75 770 3.4%
12 Sweden 246.24 248.59 690 -6.1%
13 Italy 236.56 222.11 708 -12.7%
14 South Korea 184.14 205.11 417 3.5%
15 Israel 211.25 201.83 431 -11.2%
16 Denmark 119.33 166.68 513 29.9%
17 Belgium 126.76 149.67 437 9.8%
18 Austria 127.72 130.42 383 -5.1%
19 Singapore 116.36 116.23 314 -7.1%
20 India 97.11 110.33 209 5.6%
21 Taiwan 80.54 73.46 181 -15.2%
22 Norway 64.94 71.29 268 2.1%
23 Finland 72.14 67.53 259 -13.0%
24 Portugal 44.01 59.10 203 24.8%
25 Brazil 61.84 58.09 224 -12.7%
26 Czech Republic 41.99 42.18 163 -6.6%
27 New Zealand 34.19 38.20 132 3.9%
28 Ireland 30.81 33.58 132 1.3%
29 Argentina 25.85 31.12 92 11.9%
30 Russia 27.66 29.84 169 0.3%
31 Mexico 20.76 28.10 95 25.8%
32 Poland 27.27 27.87 141 -5.0%
33 Hungary 26.98 26.51 93 -8.6%
34 South Africa 19.21 25.22 109 22.0%
35 Greece 18.96 18.26 89 -10.4%
36 Chile 13.93 16.73 66 11.7%
37 Iceland 14.24 13.83 50 -9.7%
38 Saudi Arabia 16.94 10.60 84 -41.8%
39 Thailand 7.50 8.37 55 3.8%
40 Estonia 8.00 7.71 63 -10.4%
41 Panama 6.22 7.31 33 9.2%
42 Turkey 7.64 6.87 64 -16.5%
43 Kenya 3.30 6.13 36 72.9%
44 Iran 5.39 5.53 33 -4.6%
45 United Arab Emirates 3.65 5.40 32 37.4%
46 Slovenia 7.52 4.71 23 -41.8%
47 Qatar 1.32 4.59 29 223.1%
48 Croatia 4.95 4.01 32 -24.7%
49 Malaysia 1.92 3.94 40 91.0%
50 Luxembourg 3.25 3.80 15 8.7%

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.