The Nature Index, a new ranking from the journal Nature, rates the University of Maryland No. 55 among the world's most productive scientific research institutions. UMD ranks No. 15 among public U.S. universities and No. 29 among all U.S. universities.
The ranking, which includes non-academic institutions, is based on research productivity in the world's top science journals.
UMD also made Nature Index specialty lists of the top 50 most productive institutions in two subject areas:
- No. 26 in Physical Sciences (No. 7 among public U.S. universities and No. 12 among all U.S. universities)
- No. 46 in Earth and Environmental Sciences (No. 18 among public U.S. universities and No. 24 among all U.S. universities)
To create the ranking, Nature editors identified top journals with the help of an outside panel of experts and an independent survey asking scientists "where they would want to publish their most significant research." The survey yielded a list of 68 elite journals in chemistry, life sciences, physical sciences, and earth and environmental sciences. Editors counted the number of times each institution's authors appeared in the journals, adjusting fractionally for co-authorship.
The result quantifies the institutions and countries that publish the most in the top scientific journals. The U.S. led the list in national productivity, followed by China. The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the single most productive institution worldwide, followed by Harvard University.
Nature is making data from the index available online to researchers and has pledged to update the data regularly to create a rolling window on research productivity.
