2021 tables: Countries/territories - Earth & environmental sciences

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

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# Country/territory Share 2019 Share 2020 Count 2020 Change in Adjusted Share* 2019–2020
1 United States of America (USA) 2874.37 2894.89 4405 -3.7%
2 China 1631.33 1953.69 2755 14.5%
3 United Kingdom (UK) 539.80 538.72 1289 -4.6%
4 Germany 430.98 431.40 1064 -4.3%
5 France 338.20 329.57 825 -6.9%
6 Australia 303.10 322.07 738 1.6%
7 Canada 303.51 310.31 737 -2.3%
8 Japan 289.62 262.44 508 -13.4%
9 Switzerland 219.52 207.24 513 -9.8%
10 Netherlands 128.41 133.85 384 -0.4%
11 Italy 103.99 127.13 340 16.8%
12 Spain 103.65 115.87 312 6.8%
13 South Korea 96.87 108.04 199 6.6%
14 Norway 98.84 89.31 274 -13.6%
15 Sweden 87.08 77.10 237 -15.4%
16 Denmark 73.39 74.35 215 -3.2%
17 India 59.48 56.99 119 -8.4%
18 Belgium 46.15 56.58 180 17.2%
19 Singapore 48.78 54.70 112 7.2%
20 New Zealand 47.77 53.41 153 6.8%
21 Israel 52.96 50.31 106 -9.2%
22 Taiwan 35.78 47.82 115 27.8%
23 Brazil 37.20 42.50 118 9.2%
24 Russia 30.56 34.09 123 6.6%
25 Austria 39.91 32.33 135 -22.6%
26 Finland 36.01 31.36 105 -16.8%
27 Czech Republic 29.55 25.52 88 -17.5%
28 South Africa 19.33 23.18 92 14.6%
29 Poland 14.34 16.82 51 12.1%
30 Chile 18.20 14.82 61 -22.2%
31 Saudi Arabia 22.71 14.81 44 -37.7%
32 Ireland 11.24 13.11 56 11.5%
33 Portugal 18.31 12.50 55 -34.8%
34 Argentina 6.91 12.41 59 71.6%
35 Mexico 12.94 11.87 54 -12.4%
36 Iceland 7.48 9.01 28 15.1%
37 Greece 7.57 8.20 29 3.5%
38 United Arab Emirates 4.92 7.76 28 50.5%
39 Turkey 4.89 7.69 23 50.1%
40 Iran 8.30 6.68 19 -23.1%
41 Hungary 3.78 6.34 32 60.2%
42 Slovenia 2.68 5.46 13 94.7%
43 Colombia 9.08 5.00 22 -47.4%
44 Indonesia 6.37 4.76 31 -28.5%
45 Thailand 3.28 4.28 16 24.6%
46 Peru 2.29 4.09 22 70.5%
47 Estonia 4.14 3.73 26 -13.9%
48 Philippines 1.02 3.01 15 181.2%
49 Bangladesh 3.43 2.92 15 -18.6%
50 Panama 2.46 2.71 17 5.4%

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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