2021 tables: Institutions - Nature & Science

The 2021 tables are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020.

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# Institution Share 2019 Share 2020 Count 2020 Change in Adjusted Share* 2019–2020
1 Harvard University, United States of America (USA) 80.18 72.82 239 -17.6%
2 Max Planck Society, Germany 38.79 48.14 164 12.6%
3 Stanford University, United States of America (USA) 41.48 44.35 135 -3.0%
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States of America (USA) 42.19 39.22 163 -15.6%
5 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China 24.65 29.22 137 7.6%
6 University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), United States of America (USA) 20.91 23.45 76 1.8%
7 University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), United States of America (USA) 24.83 20.24 84 -26.0%
8 California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States of America (USA) 19.39 20.21 66 -5.4%
9 University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States of America (USA) 12.81 19.80 70 40.3%
10 University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK) 14.19 18.01 103 15.2%
11 National Institutes of Health (NIH), United States of America (USA) 12.31 17.12 76 26.2%
12 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK) 15.36 16.30 104 -3.7%
13 Princeton University, United States of America (USA) 17.37 15.97 59 -16.5%
14 University of Toronto (U of T), Canada 11.74 15.62 54 20.7%
15 Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), United States of America (USA) 13.11 15.50 45 7.3%
16 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland 20.77 15.10 63 -34.0%
17 Yale University, United States of America (USA) 16.35 15.06 64 -16.4%
18 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France 13.83 13.62 190 -10.6%
19 Columbia University in the City of New York (CU), United States of America (USA) 17.30 13.60 65 -28.6%
20 Cornell University, United States of America (USA) 21.30 13.51 65 -42.4%
21 University of Pennsylvania (Penn), United States of America (USA) 15.04 12.85 61 -22.4%
22 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), United Kingdom (UK) 13.76 12.61 55 -16.8%
23 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Germany 11.86 12.25 108 -6.2%
24 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), United States of America (USA) 5.85 12.05 54 87.0%
25 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland 5.43 11.65 30 94.7%
26 University of Washington (UW), United States of America (USA) 12.73 10.92 68 -22.1%
27 Tsinghua University, China 15.36 10.79 56 -36.2%
28 New York University (NYU), United States of America (USA) 8.33 10.72 41 16.8%
29 The Rockefeller University, United States of America (USA) 7.22 10.48 39 31.7%
30 The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan 13.21 10.46 61 -28.1%
31 Northwestern University (NU), United States of America (USA) 8.45 10.40 33 11.7%
32 Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), Israel 8.34 10.27 22 11.7%
33 The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern Medical Center), United States of America (USA) 12.94 10.21 20 -28.4%
34 The Francis Crick Institute, United Kingdom (UK) 4.38 9.91 29 105.3%
35 Peking University (PKU), China 8.83 9.64 43 -0.9%
36 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States of America (USA) 11.59 9.47 64 -25.9%
37 The University of Chicago (UChicago), United States of America (USA) 16.27 9.11 45 -49.1%
38 Duke University, United States of America (USA) 6.85 9.10 56 20.7%
39 University of Michigan (U-M), United States of America (USA) 10.58 9.05 57 -22.4%
40 The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), United States of America (USA) 3.95 8.73 35 100.4%
41 Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (UK) 2.69 8.50 61 186.5%
42 University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder), United States of America (USA) 6.84 8.37 35 11.0%
43 Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS), United States of America (USA) 2.63 8.31 44 186.8%
44 UCL, United Kingdom (UK) 8.64 7.77 56 -18.4%
45 Scripps Research, United States of America (USA) 7.52 7.71 24 -7.0%
46 McGill University, Canada 5.77 7.62 42 20.0%
47 Heidelberg University (Uni Heidelberg), Germany 4.07 7.58 45 69.1%
48 The University of Manchester (UoM), United Kingdom (UK) 5.43 7.21 29 20.6%
49 Johns Hopkins University (JHU), United States of America (USA) 11.89 7.21 57 -45.0%
50 RIKEN, Japan 6.92 7.02 44 -7.9%
51 Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), United States of America (USA) 6.65 6.91 49 -5.8%
52 Fudan University, China 4.84 6.81 33 27.8%
53 University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), United States of America (USA) 4.30 6.71 24 41.8%
54 Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), Germany 6.39 6.36 30 -9.6%
55 University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark 5.18 6.31 43 10.6%
56 Alphabet Inc., United States of America (USA) 3.83 6.23 10 47.8%
57 University of Virginia (UVA), United States of America (USA) 1.00 6.12 26 456.7%
58 University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), China 7.38 6.07 32 -25.4%
59 The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (UK) 2.25 5.96 44 140.3%
60 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), United States of America (USA) 3.49 5.83 32 51.7%
61 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), United States of America (USA) 4.95 5.77 26 5.8%
62 University of Basel (UB), Switzerland 6.97 5.71 22 -25.7%
63 F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Switzerland 5.27 5.56 12 -4.3%
64 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), United States of America (USA) 5.97 5.46 44 -17.0%
65 European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Germany 2.96 5.45 47 67.0%
66 University of Bern (UniBE), Switzerland 1.76 5.41 30 178.9%
67 University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), United States of America (USA) 2.27 5.39 22 115.4%
68 Zhejiang University (ZJU), China 5.46 5.31 23 -11.8%
69 Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium 3.28 5.30 37 46.6%
70 University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Australia 2.37 5.06 38 93.9%
71 National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), France 3.56 4.92 68 25.3%
72 Wellcome Sanger Institute, United Kingdom (UK) 5.01 4.85 39 -12.2%
73 Leibniz Association, Germany 4.24 4.83 56 3.4%
74 Brandeis University, United States of America (USA) 0.38 4.79 13 1055.5%
75 Kyoto University, Japan 4.95 4.71 20 -13.7%
76 HHMI Janelia Research Campus, United States of America (USA) 5.53 4.63 10 -24.0%
77 Michigan State University (MSU), United States of America (USA) 1.05 4.50 21 290.4%
78 People's Liberation Army (PLA), China 1.80 4.44 23 124.5%
79 ShanghaiTech University, China 0.99 4.38 20 301.5%
80 University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), United States of America (USA) 1.12 4.37 35 253.8%
81 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), China 5.04 4.36 56 -21.5%
82 National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan 3.99 4.36 27 -1.0%
83 University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland 7.22 4.29 39 -46.1%
84 National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore 2.93 4.23 34 30.8%
85 University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), United States of America (USA) 7.46 4.19 31 -49.0%
86 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude), United States of America (USA) 3.50 4.19 14 8.6%
87 The University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada 4.68 4.18 30 -18.9%
88 Institute for Basic Science (IBS), South Korea 1.75 4.18 16 117.2%
89 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), United States of America (USA) 5.56 4.11 15 -32.9%
90 Texas A&M University (TAMU), United States of America (USA) 1.17 4.07 26 215.0%
91 Sorbonne University, France 2.01 4.07 67 83.6%
92 The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia 3.23 4.07 35 14.3%
93 The University of Hong Kong (HKU), China 0.64 4.06 24 477.9%
94 Stockholm University, Sweden 0.46 4.06 32 704.3%
95 Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea 1.61 4.03 12 127.9%
96 Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), United States of America (USA) 1.24 4.00 24 194.0%
97 Radboud University Nijmegen (RU), Netherlands 1.08 3.95 18 231.0%
98 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States of America (USA) 4.87 3.68 26 -31.4%
99 Monash University, Australia 3.22 3.67 25 3.5%
100 Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands 1.54 3.66 10 115.7%

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 through 2022, in 2023 64 health-science journals were added to the Index. The 146 journals in the Nature Index were 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/.
  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 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 2022 levels to calculate the percentage change. For more information on the adjustment, please see the Adjusted metric explainer.


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