2016 Research Leaders: Leading institutions in physical sciences

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

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Position Institution Share 2015 Count 2015
1 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China 511.33 1338
2 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France 323.06 1734
3 Max Planck Society, Germany 320.15 1057
4 Stanford University, United States of America (USA) 227.64 660
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States of America (USA) 226.39 729
6 The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan 223.59 615
7 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Germany 206.28 858
8 Harvard University, United States of America (USA) 172.90 602
9 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK) 169.92 521
10 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland 139.00 353
11 University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK) 130.10 451
12 University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), United States of America (USA) 125.68 496
13 Peking University (PKU), China 123.75 466
14 National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Italy 123.49 597
15 Tsinghua University, China 117.99 511
16 University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), United States of America (USA) 117.65 334
17 Princeton University, United States of America (USA) 111.02 370
18 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States of America (USA) 109.06 289
19 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), United States of America (USA) 108.49 357
20 University of Michigan (U-M), United States of America (USA) 108.14 362
21 University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), United States of America (USA) 105.59 428
22 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland 103.42 283
23 California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States of America (USA) 102.67 374
24 Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore 100.40 218
25 University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), China 94.00 335
26 Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Russia 91.82 503
27 Northwestern University (NU), United States of America (USA) 90.59 235
28 Columbia University in the City of New York (CU), United States of America (USA) 90.31 277
29 Tohoku University, Japan 87.83 263
30 National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore 87.58 212
31 Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), United States of America (USA) 86.90 195
32 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea 86.17 189
33 Nanjing University (NJU), China 86.17 300
34 Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (UK) 86.17 321
35 Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea 86.16 240
36 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), United States of America (USA) 85.64 469
37 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), United States of America (USA) 84.58 274
38 Leibniz Association, Germany 81.85 280
39 Cornell University, United States of America (USA) 81.60 228
40 The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), United States of America (USA) 80.46 258
41 Fudan University, China 79.62 163
42 Kyoto University, Japan 79.59 254
43 Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), United States of America (USA) 79.18 228
44 University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), United States of America (USA) 74.99 335
45 Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain 74.57 579
46 University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States of America (USA) 73.68 195
47 University of Pennsylvania (Penn), United States of America (USA) 71.73 202
48 RIKEN, Japan 69.82 260
49 Rice University, United States of America (USA) 69.25 200
50 University of Toronto (U of T), Canada 68.55 229
51 The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), France 67.45 541
52 National Research Council (CNR), Italy 67.41 303
53 Soochow University, China 66.80 127
54 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), United States of America (USA) 65.36 224
55 Zhejiang University (ZJU), China 63.50 167
56 National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan 63.40 180
57 European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland 63.17 375
58 University of Minnesota (UMN), United States of America (USA) 62.87 257
59 Yale University, United States of America (USA) 62.30 292
60 Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), United States of America (USA) 61.91 337
61 University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder), United States of America (USA) 61.34 254
62 University of Washington (UW), United States of America (USA) 61.28 310
63 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), United States of America (USA) 61.12 185
64 Purdue University, United States of America (USA) 61.09 182
65 Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), South Korea 60.94 137
66 Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), United States of America (USA) 59.33 232
67 The University of Chicago (UChicago), United States of America (USA) 59.33 295
68 Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), Israel 56.64 196
69 Sorbonne University, France 55.71 550
70 Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), Germany 54.31 242
71 Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (IIT), Israel 54.15 170
72 Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany 54.12 178
73 University of Paris-Saclay, France 53.91 446
74 IBM, United States of America (USA) 53.18 101
75 Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), South Korea 52.02 199
76 UCL, United Kingdom (UK) 51.21 236
77 Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), United States of America (USA) 50.44 260
78 Osaka University, Japan 49.07 197
79 Australian National University (ANU), Australia 48.68 127
80 National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan 48.21 163
81 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (RU), United States of America (USA) 47.77 224
82 Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI), Canada 47.69 129
83 University of Würzburg (JMU), Germany 45.50 168
84 University of Hamburg (UHH), Germany 44.46 175
85 TU Dresden, Germany 44.33 216
86 University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark 43.94 211
87 University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland 43.44 193
88 Tel Aviv University (TAU), Israel 43.42 180
89 The Ohio State University (OSU), United States of America (USA) 42.77 302
90 Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), Japan 42.58 188
91 Grenoble Alpes University (UGA), France 42.40 347
92 Johns Hopkins University (JHU), United States of America (USA) 42.21 226
93 Durham University, United Kingdom (UK) 41.69 119
94 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Germany 41.67 224
95 Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands 41.47 88
96 University of Southampton (Soton), United Kingdom (UK) 41.45 138
97 Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Spain 41.20 201
98 Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI), India 41.18 138
99 Yonsei University, South Korea 40.98 107
100 Sandia National Laboratories, United States of America (USA) 40.86 114

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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