2019 tables: Institutions - physical sciences

Table criteria

Region/country

Sector

Subject/journals

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

2018	Institution	FC 2017	FC 2018	AC 2018	Change in Adjusted FC 2017-2018 ^*
1	Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China	516.48	534.99	1826	2.0%
2	Max Planck Society, Germany	310.49	310.15	1033	-1.6%
3	French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France	276.6	242.7	1461	-13.6%
4	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States of America (USA)	213.15	223.34	625	3.2%
5	Stanford University, United States of America (USA)	210.26	218.87	521	2.5%
6	The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan	217.58	203.76	559	-7.8%
7	Harvard University, United States of America (USA)	189.43	178.13	554	-7.4%
8	Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Germany	182.98	173.44	790	-6.6%
9	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland	144.75	162.88	413	10.8%
10	Tsinghua University, China	145.28	157.64	663	6.9%
11	Peking University (PKU), China	141.37	145.82	585	1.6%
12	University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK)	145.61	139.59	447	-5.6%
13	University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), China	122.5	133.14	485	7.0%
14	Nanjing University (NJU), China	114.75	126.6	413	8.7%
15	National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore	99.9	117.59	297	15.9%
16	Princeton University, United States of America (USA)	104.33	116.73	345	10.2%
17	University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), United States of America (USA)	131.25	114.77	478	-13.9%
18	University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), China	73.54	113.11	670	51.5%
19	Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Russia	90.42	111.14	479	21.1%
20	Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore	113.97	110.54	276	-4.5%
21	National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Italy	115.22	107.78	517	-7.9%
22	University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK)	116.3	106.48	371	-9.8%
23	California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States of America (USA)	102.98	106.35	356	1.7%
24	Northwestern University (NU), United States of America (USA)	87.56	102.49	271	15.3%
25	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland	91.09	95.82	269	3.6%
26	University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), United States of America (USA)	108.65	95.33	314	-13.6%
27	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States of America (USA)	112.43	95.18	298	-16.6%
28	Zhejiang University (ZJU), China	79.28	94.88	295	17.9%
29	Fudan University, China	61.26	93.65	247	50.6%
30	University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), United States of America (USA)	103.61	91.93	351	-12.6%
31	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), United States of America (USA)	95.82	87.78	449	-9.8%
32	Soochow University, China	75.72	84.94	154	10.5%
33	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea	89.25	82.87	168	-8.5%
34	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), United States of America (USA)	83.69	82.18	242	-3.3%
35	Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), China	54.77	80.35	325	44.5%
36	Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (UK)	77.81	80.02	323	1.3%
37	The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), United States of America (USA)	77.7	79.14	242	0.3%
38	University of Michigan (U-M), United States of America (USA)	80.75	78.12	261	-4.7%
39	Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain	90.24	76.55	504	-16.4%
40	Kyoto University, Japan	74.61	76.33	237	0.8%
41	The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), United States of America (USA)	74.6	74.05	221	-2.2%
42	Tohoku University, Japan	59.94	73.57	200	20.9%
43	Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea	71.18	71.46	220	-1.1%
44	Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), India	72.36	70.8	203	-3.6%
45	University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States of America (USA)	79.09	69.67	220	-13.2%
46	Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), Israel	72.11	69.6	200	-4.9%
47	Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), United States of America (USA)	63.23	68.66	217	6.9%
48	National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), United States of America (USA)	65.5	67.82	245	2.0%
49	Leibniz Association, Germany	66.64	67.38	245	-0.4%
50	Cornell University, United States of America (USA)	59.25	67.2	235	11.7%
51	Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), United States of America (USA)	74.9	66.4	314	-12.7%
52	University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder), United States of America (USA)	55.18	65.46	244	16.8%
53	Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), Germany	47.25	64.6	236	34.7%
54	Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China	52.87	62.79	170	17.0%
55	RIKEN, Japan	61.51	62.75	272	0.5%
56	Yale University, United States of America (USA)	51.92	62.64	216	18.8%
57	The University of Chicago (UChicago), United States of America (USA)	70.29	62.52	239	-12.4%
58	University of Toronto (U of T), Canada	55.8	61.42	192	8.4%
59	Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), United States of America (USA)	62.02	61.33	220	-2.6%
60	Purdue University, United States of America (USA)	58.12	61.19	201	3.7%
61	Columbia University in the City of New York (CU), United States of America (USA)	64.39	61.06	224	-6.6%
62	University of Pennsylvania (Penn), United States of America (USA)	64.77	60.04	167	-8.7%
63	Beihang University (BUAA), China	36.27	58.92	198	60.0%
64	European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland	54.76	57.81	318	4.0%
65	Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany	54.16	56.3	195	2.4%
66	Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), China	51.19	55.91	147	7.6%
67	Wuhan University (WHU), China	39.37	55.7	131	39.3%
68	University of Washington (UW), United States of America (USA)	50.41	55.43	216	8.3%
69	University of Minnesota (UMN), United States of America (USA)	46.71	53.02	178	11.8%
70	Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), United States of America (USA)	59.07	52.44	222	-12.6%
71	Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (IIT), Israel	39.41	51.93	147	29.8%
72	Rice University, United States of America (USA)	58.79	51.58	195	-13.6%
73	University of Southampton (Soton), United Kingdom (UK)	42.82	51.4	180	18.2%
74	National Research Council (CNR), Italy	57.15	51.03	261	-12.0%
75	Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC) - Paris 6, France	50.64	50.74	465	-1.3%
76	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), South Korea	44.26	50.55	183	12.5%
77	Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands	42.3	50.24	131	17.0%
78	National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan	48.93	49.96	207	0.6%
79	University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark	45.56	49.9	197	7.9%
80	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), China	44.67	48.21	158	6.3%
81	University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), United States of America (USA)	56.71	47.51	236	-17.5%
82	Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Spain	49.64	46.59	174	-7.6%
83	Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), South Korea	43.32	45.54	123	3.5%
84	Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), China	32.85	45.1	134	35.2%
85	Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), China	34.66	44.62	97	26.8%
86	Utrecht University (UU), Netherlands	36.75	44.54	221	19.4%
87	Durham University, United Kingdom (UK)	44.8	44.35	104	-2.5%
88	University College London (UCL), United Kingdom (UK)	44.07	44.34	213	-0.9%
89	Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), United States of America (USA)	46.29	44.15	215	-6.1%
90	Institute for Basic Science (IBS), South Korea	42.78	43.96	164	1.2%
91	King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia	47.23	43.85	104	-8.5%
92	The Ohio State University (OSU), United States of America (USA)	37.7	43.33	221	13.2%
93	Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea	42.95	42.52	97	-2.5%
94	Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Germany	49.95	41.82	175	-17.5%
95	Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI), Canada	50.72	40.9	123	-20.6%
96	Tel Aviv University (TAU), Israel	41.69	40.47	135	-4.4%
97	Tianjin University (TJU), China	31.11	40.35	139	27.7%
98	Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA), France	45.46	40.3	400	-12.7%
99	University of Hamburg (UHH), Germany	46.14	40.2	195	-14.2%
100	University of Würzburg, Germany	47.58	40.14	134	-16.9%

The original version of this table (published 20 June 2019) used incorrect fractional counts, percentage changes and article counts to derive the rankings, which meant that some institutions were ranked incorrectly. The data and rankings were corrected on 12 August 2019.

Each year, the Nature Index publishes tables based on counts of high-quality research outputs in the previous calendar year. It is important for users to understand that the data behind the tables are based on a relatively small proportion of total research papers, that they cover the natural sciences only and that outputs are non-normalized (that is, they don’t reflect the size of the country or institution, or its overall research output). We encourage users to combine the free-to-access Nature Index data with information from other sources.

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 FC accounts for the small annual variation in the total number of articles in Nature Index journals. FC values have been adjusted to 2018 levels to calculate the percentage change. For more information on the adjustment, please see the Adjusted metric explainer.

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