2016 Research Leaders: Leading institutions in biological sciences

The 2016 Research Leaders are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015.

Table criteria

Position Institution Share 2015 Count 2015
1 Harvard University, United States of America (USA) 638.40 1543
2 National Institutes of Health (NIH), United States of America (USA) 363.55 895
3 Stanford University, United States of America (USA) 280.37 630
4 Max Planck Society, Germany 257.35 805
5 Yale University, United States of America (USA) 205.36 430
6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States of America (USA) 200.55 729
7 University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), United States of America (USA) 199.11 509
8 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China 196.40 534
9 University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States of America (USA) 183.31 485
10 University of Pennsylvania (Penn), United States of America (USA) 176.93 421
11 University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK) 176.09 523
12 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France 170.33 1183
13 Johns Hopkins University (JHU), United States of America (USA) 165.37 420
14 University of Toronto (U of T), Canada 161.94 403
15 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK) 159.15 497
16 Columbia University in the City of New York (CU), United States of America (USA) 155.86 437
17 University of Michigan (U-M), United States of America (USA) 154.02 378
18 Duke University, United States of America (USA) 144.66 383
19 University of Washington (UW), United States of America (USA) 144.08 408
20 University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), United States of America (USA) 143.75 349
21 Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), United States of America (USA) 143.22 322
22 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States of America (USA) 142.85 385
23 Cornell University, United States of America (USA) 140.02 405
24 UCL, United Kingdom (UK) 130.17 393
25 The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan 120.43 279
26 New York University (NYU), United States of America (USA) 119.07 321
27 The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern Medical Center), United States of America (USA) 118.81 252
28 University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), United States of America (USA) 117.42 233
29 The University of Chicago (UChicago), United States of America (USA) 109.66 290
30 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Germany 107.41 555
31 Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), United States of America (USA) 100.63 269
32 The Rockefeller University, United States of America (USA) 99.54 239
33 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), United States of America (USA) 98.86 278
34 McGill University, Canada 98.41 284
35 Vanderbilt University (VU), United States of America (USA) 88.36 210
36 National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), France 87.02 776
37 University of California, Davis (UC Davis), United States of America (USA) 85.40 229
38 Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), United States of America (USA) 83.71 245
39 Northwestern University (NU), United States of America (USA) 81.20 221
40 University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), United States of America (USA) 80.60 222
41 Princeton University, United States of America (USA) 78.76 150
42 Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain 78.14 319
43 Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), Israel 76.92 143
44 Scripps Research, United States of America (USA) 76.22 208
45 The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, United States of America (USA) 74.96 225
46 The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (UK) 71.12 224
47 University of Minnesota (UMN), United States of America (USA) 71.03 202
48 Emory University, United States of America (USA) 68.61 179
49 The University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada 67.60 175
50 University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland 66.83 268
51 University of Southern California (USC), United States of America (USA) 65.95 208
52 University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Chan Medical School), United States of America (USA) 65.04 221
53 Karolinska Institute (KI), Sweden 64.79 293
54 California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States of America (USA) 64.55 130
55 The Ohio State University (OSU), United States of America (USA) 63.41 168
56 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland 62.80 203
57 Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS), United States of America (USA) 60.83 237
58 Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Einstein), United States of America (USA) 60.15 172
59 RIKEN, Japan 60.07 223
60 Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (UK) 58.84 279
61 Kyoto University, Japan 57.94 175
62 University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark 56.73 241
63 Heidelberg University (Uni Heidelberg), Germany 55.94 192
64 The University of Manchester (UoM), United Kingdom (UK) 55.41 162
65 Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), Germany 54.53 227
66 The Francis Crick Institute, United Kingdom (UK) 54.47 138
67 Peking University (PKU), China 53.77 167
68 The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia 52.98 183
69 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), United States of America (USA) 52.91 138
70 Salk Institute for Biological Studies (Salk), United States of America (USA) 52.57 143
71 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), United Kingdom (UK) 51.91 181
72 Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), United States of America (USA) 51.71 136
73 Leibniz Association, Germany 51.47 253
74 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), United States of America (USA) 51.01 111
75 Tsinghua University, China 50.73 154
76 HHMI Janelia Research Campus, United States of America (USA) 50.60 104
77 Osaka University, Japan 50.11 159
78 Boston University (BU), United States of America (USA) 49.75 199
79 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (RU), United States of America (USA) 49.55 143
80 The University of Utah (Utah), United States of America (USA) 49.26 163
81 Indiana University (IU), United States of America (USA) 49.08 160
82 Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI), Israel 48.74 123
83 National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore 47.66 212
84 Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Healthcare (IRCCS), Italy 47.52 226
85 University of Freiburg (Uni Freiburg), Germany 46.62 147
86 The University of Iowa (UI), United States of America (USA) 46.57 112
87 University of Basel (UB), Switzerland 46.46 166
88 Mayo Clinic, United States of America (USA) 44.53 143
89 European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Germany 44.35 203
90 The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), United States of America (USA) 44.21 111
91 King's College London (KCL), United Kingdom (UK) 43.60 192
92 Utrecht University (UU), Netherlands 43.14 179
93 University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (CU Anschutz), United States of America (USA) 42.67 126
94 University of Florida (UF), United States of America (USA) 42.33 141
95 University of California, Irvine (UCI), United States of America (USA) 42.07 117
96 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude), United States of America (USA) 41.59 101
97 University of Tübingen (Uni Tübingen), Germany 41.26 163
98 Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), United States of America (USA) 40.53 101
99 Fudan University, China 39.86 117
100 University of Cincinnati (UC), United States of America (USA) 39.70 123

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 and health 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 145 natural-science and health-science journals. The journals were selected on reputation by an independent panel of leading scientists in their fields. The list is reviewed periodically and journals may be removed or added. Articles from eLife were no longer included in the Nature Index from 2023 after the journal changed its publishing model.
  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 research leaders.