2021 tables: Countries/territories - biological sciences

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

Table criteria

# Country/territory Share 2019 Share 2020 Count 2020 Change in Adjusted Share* 2019–2020
1 United States of America (USA) 9037.14 9591.79 12951 -1.8%
2 China 1584.21 1869.02 3132 9.1%
3 United Kingdom (UK) 1559.43 1660.36 3609 -1.5%
4 Germany 1286.51 1511.93 3230 8.7%
5 Japan 635.53 759.48 1366 10.5%
6 France 716.28 724.47 1769 -6.5%
7 Canada 642.17 626.38 1523 -9.8%
8 Switzerland 481.23 487.88 1178 -6.2%
9 Australia 416.57 455.74 1196 1.2%
10 Netherlands 342.64 371.86 1121 0.4%
11 Spain 303.34 304.05 888 -7.3%
12 Sweden 244.25 285.45 853 8.1%
13 Italy 236.61 259.75 817 1.5%
14 South Korea 218.04 238.72 511 1.3%
15 Israel 215.48 235.37 519 1.0%
16 Denmark 153.16 166.78 593 0.7%
17 Austria 136.99 154.15 461 4.1%
18 Belgium 147.14 150.74 506 -5.2%
19 Singapore 127.00 128.73 348 -6.3%
20 India 108.81 95.59 214 -18.7%
21 Taiwan 82.18 86.94 227 -2.2%
22 Finland 76.43 77.21 304 -6.6%
23 Norway 80.36 72.05 318 -17.1%
24 Brazil 56.70 69.56 259 13.5%
25 Portugal 49.10 51.63 199 -2.7%
26 Czech Republic 43.07 49.34 177 6.0%
27 Russia 41.71 45.18 218 0.2%
28 New Zealand 38.54 41.68 159 0.0%
29 Ireland 33.27 39.47 154 9.7%
30 Hungary 28.85 38.66 122 23.9%
31 Argentina 20.32 38.36 130 74.6%
32 Mexico 23.74 31.75 132 23.7%
33 South Africa 21.97 29.99 158 26.2%
34 Poland 21.26 29.11 171 26.6%
35 Chile 22.82 23.24 90 -5.8%
36 Greece 17.58 21.67 101 14.0%
37 Saudi Arabia 17.53 14.47 95 -23.6%
38 Estonia 10.20 12.55 88 13.8%
39 Turkey 7.05 11.17 70 46.7%
40 Thailand 10.30 9.43 53 -15.3%
41 Kenya 8.75 7.37 55 -22.0%
42 Iceland 12.20 6.89 43 -47.8%
43 Croatia 2.89 6.49 45 107.7%
44 United Arab Emirates 2.53 6.49 33 137.7%
45 Panama 5.13 6.46 39 16.4%
46 Peru 3.29 6.29 31 77.0%
47 Colombia 4.32 5.98 55 28.1%
48 Slovenia 5.71 5.73 35 -7.3%
49 Luxembourg 3.83 5.24 27 26.5%
50 Uruguay 2.72 4.52 16 53.3%

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/.
  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 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.