2018 tables: Countries/territories - physical sciences

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

Table criteria

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# Country/territory Share 2016 Share 2017 Count 2017 Change in Adjusted Share* 2016–2017
1 Germany 1604.71 1571.29 3152 -3.2%
2 United Kingdom (UK) 1031.19 1024.18 2382 -1.8%
3 France 812.35 751.24 1747 -8.6%
4 Italy 515.12 495.47 1246 -4.9%
5 Switzerland 462.27 485.67 1262 3.8%
6 Spain 420.60 413.44 1124 -2.9%
7 Netherlands 304.00 309.09 807 0.5%
8 Russia 248.80 251.31 864 -0.2%
9 Sweden 164.19 189.16 595 13.9%
10 Austria 114.08 137.54 450 19.1%
11 Belgium 148.29 123.46 383 -17.7%
12 Denmark 119.40 115.22 384 -4.6%
13 Poland 109.36 98.14 517 -11.3%
14 Finland 67.85 67.51 243 -1.7%
15 Czech Republic 45.48 64.66 327 40.5%
16 Portugal 45.59 47.99 269 4.0%
17 Ireland 52.13 45.28 240 -14.2%
18 Greece 35.65 33.57 239 -6.9%
19 Norway 29.73 28.74 177 -4.5%
20 Hungary 25.78 21.14 205 -18.9%
21 Slovenia 20.28 20.43 127 -0.5%
22 Ukraine 15.73 14.36 204 -9.8%
23 Croatia 8.88 10.48 123 16.6%
24 Romania 13.37 10.39 184 -23.2%
25 Estonia 7.63 10.17 88 31.7%
26 Luxembourg 9.61 9.25 30 -4.9%
27 Slovakia 5.18 6.23 99 18.9%
28 Belarus 3.69 5.89 150 57.8%
29 Cyprus 6.41 5.58 80 -14.0%
30 Lithuania 2.16 5.02 83 130.3%
31 Bulgaria 5.49 4.77 120 -14.1%
32 Serbia 6.49 4.27 152 -34.9%
33 Malta 0.38 3.79 5 899.2%
34 Iceland 2.34 2.64 22 11.6%
35 Moldova 1.05 1.55 6 45.9%
36 Bosnia and Herzegovina 1.31 0.87 5 -34.1%
37 Latvia 2.16 0.35 46 -84.0%
38 Macedonia 2.00 0.33 1 -83.5%
39 Vatican City State (Holy See) 0.08 0.27 7 210.9%
40 Monaco – 0.05 11 N/A
41 Montenegro 0.03 0.04 3 47.5%

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/.

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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