2021 tables: Countries/territories - Nature & Science

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) 769.03 802.12 1184 -5.3%
2 United Kingdom (UK) 123.66 146.11 418 7.2%
3 Germany 127.86 144.89 377 2.9%
4 China 118.97 144.85 327 10.5%
5 Japan 63.70 60.46 183 -13.8%
6 France 46.85 58.26 226 12.9%
7 Switzerland 62.10 57.11 166 -16.5%
8 Canada 36.72 47.23 160 16.8%
9 Australia 30.01 34.11 161 3.2%
10 Netherlands 18.92 29.61 131 42.1%
11 South Korea 12.80 27.07 72 92.0%
12 Israel 14.12 20.04 60 28.9%
13 Austria 16.54 17.73 62 -2.7%
14 Italy 15.02 17.24 102 4.2%
15 Spain 17.34 16.73 102 -12.4%
16 Sweden 12.87 15.08 94 6.4%
17 Belgium 12.92 14.65 79 2.9%
18 Denmark 11.31 12.21 77 -2.0%
19 Singapore 8.60 10.03 44 5.9%
20 Russia 5.36 6.21 52 5.2%
21 Finland 3.44 5.46 37 44.3%
22 Brazil 2.40 4.82 32 82.1%
23 India 2.35 4.42 23 70.9%
24 Norway 4.28 3.69 46 -21.8%
25 South Africa 3.56 3.37 28 -14.1%
26 Poland 5.15 3.25 29 -42.8%
27 Portugal 2.38 3.06 27 16.7%
28 Taiwan 2.51 2.55 25 -7.5%
29 Ireland 1.28 2.41 25 71.3%
30 New Zealand 2.75 2.39 22 -21.1%
31 Mexico 0.79 2.10 25 140.9%
32 Chile 1.95 2.06 18 -4.1%
33 Hungary 2.37 2.03 18 -22.2%
34 Czech Republic 2.18 1.83 16 -23.9%
35 Argentina 1.18 1.66 18 27.8%
36 Iceland 1.21 1.61 9 20.8%
37 Saudi Arabia 0.25 1.27 15 362.0%
38 Panama 0.47 1.26 11 145.4%
39 Rwanda 0.04 0.95 1 1963.0%
40 Luxembourg 0.56 0.89 4 44.7%
41 Indonesia 1.23 0.79 11 -41.9%
42 United Arab Emirates 0.13 0.67 8 358.4%
43 Greece 2.06 0.67 9 -70.5%
44 Gabon 0.06 0.60 4 816.9%
45 Philippines 0.42 0.58 8 25.9%
46 Nicaragua 0.08 0.56 1 555.9%
47 Slovenia 0.25 0.48 7 73.3%
48 Peru 0.05 0.43 7 685.7%
49 Slovakia 0.12 0.42 9 221.5%
50 Ukraine 0.36 0.40 7 0.6%

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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