2018 tables: Institutions - physical sciences - corporate

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

Table criteria

# Institution Share 2016 Share 2017 Count 2017 Change in Adjusted Share* 2016–2017
1 IBM Corporation, United States of America (USA) 33.54 41.71 83 22.9%
2 Microsoft Corporation, United States of America (USA) 9.94 9.81 55 -2.5%
3 Alphabet Inc., United States of America (USA) 7.49 3.77 12 -50.2%
4 HP Inc., United States of America (USA) 6.57 3.68 6 -44.6%
5 Western Digital Corporation, United States of America (USA) 5.23 2.35 8 -55.6%
6 HRL Laboratories LLC, United States of America (USA) 3.75 2.25 7 -40.7%
7 Northrop Grumman Corporation, United States of America (USA) 1.75 2.17 16 22.5%
8 Lockheed Martin Corporation, United States of America (USA) 1.03 2.10 14 101.1%
9 Intel Corporation, United States of America (USA) 2.26 2.07 14 -9.4%
10 Chevron Corporation, United States of America (USA) 0.08 2.02 7 2497.0%
11 Soraa Inc., United States of America (USA) 2.00 2.00 2 -1.2%
12 Schlumberger Limited, United States of America (USA) 0.84 1.80 5 111.8%
13 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., United States of America (USA) 1.48 1.68 14 12.2%
14 Raytheon Company, United States of America (USA) 0.48 1.38 14 184.1%
15 Rydberg Technologies LLC, United States of America (USA) 1.25 2 N/A
16 Applied Materials, Inc., United States of America (USA) 2.12 1.14 14 -46.8%
17 DowDuPont Inc., United States of America (USA) 1.86 1.08 9 -42.5%
18 General Atomics, United States of America (USA) 1.20 1.03 6 -14.7%
19 Merck & Co., Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.00 1.00 1 72790.3%
19 SWK Research, United States of America (USA) 1.00 1 N/A
19 Intermolecular, Inc., United States of America (USA) 1.00 1 N/A
19 Avalanche Technology, United States of America (USA) 1.00 1 N/A
19 Vicarious FPC, Inc., United States of America (USA) 1.00 1 N/A
19 Exxon Mobil Corporation (ExxonMobil), United States of America (USA) 1.00 1 N/A
20 Sotera Defense Solutions, Inc. (Sotera), United States of America (USA) 0.46 0.95 8 103.1%
21 Adroit Materials, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.13 0.92 3 629.4%
22 Xerox Corporation, United States of America (USA) 1.10 0.86 4 -22.4%
23 Spheryx, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.86 1 N/A
24 480 Biomedical, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.85 1 N/A
25 Texas Instruments Incorporated, United States of America (USA) 0.13 0.84 8 538.3%
26 KBR Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.80 5 N/A
27 First Solar, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.80 1 N/A
27 Pranalytica, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.80 1 N/A
28 OEwaves, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.78 1 N/A
29 Firebird Biomolecular Sciences, LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.75 1 N/A
30 LodeSpin Labs, United States of America (USA) 0.71 3 N/A
31 GlobalFoundries Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.62 0.63 3 0.9%
32 AfaSci, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.61 1 N/A
33 Cree, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.50 0.60 3 18.6%
33 Seagate Technology LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.85 0.60 2 -30.2%
34 Materials Development, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.59 2 N/A
35 Synopsys, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.56 2 N/A
36 Teledyne Scientific and Imaging, United States of America (USA) 0.33 0.52 3 55.6%
37 Boston Consulting Group (BCG), United States of America (USA) 0.50 1 N/A
37 BioNano Genomics, United States of America (USA) 0.50 1 N/A
38 Jacobs, United States of America (USA) 0.25 0.49 10 92.5%
39 Hysitron, Inc., United States of America (USA) 1.57 0.45 3 -71.7%
40 Advanced Energy Materials, LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.42 1 N/A
41 Polyera Corporation, United States of America (USA) 0.67 0.41 3 -38.9%
42 Lintec of America, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.32 0.41 3 28.5%
43 Nonlinear Control Strategies (NLCSTR), United States of America (USA) 0.22 0.40 1 77.9%
43 Predictive Science Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.71 0.40 1 -44.7%
43 Grandata, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.40 1 N/A
43 RxFF Consulting, LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.40 1 N/A
44 UES, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.13 0.40 5 195.5%
45 PLANT PV Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.39 1 N/A
46 Plasma-Therm, United States of America (USA) 0.38 1 N/A
46 Industrial Economics Incorporated (IEc), United States of America (USA) 0.38 1 N/A
47 Scientist Support LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.35 2 N/A
48 Elenion Technologies, LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.35 2 N/A
49 Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. - Headquarter, United States of America (USA) 0.33 1 N/A
49 AIP Publishing LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.33 1 N/A
49 QEDone LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.33 1 N/A
49 Maxwell Analytics LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.33 1 N/A
49 Moderna, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.33 1 N/A
49 MicroLink Devices, Inc., United States of America (USA) 0.33 1 N/A
49 Drug Design Methodologies, LLC, United States of America (USA) 0.33 1 N/A
49 Azimuth Corporation, United States of America (USA) 0.28 0.33 1 18.6%
50 Bruker Corporation, United States of America (USA) 1.14 0.33 5 -71.3%

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.