2023 Research Leaders: Leading institutions in biological sciences

The 2023 Research Leaders are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022.

Table criteria

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Position Institution Share 2021 Share 2022 Count 2022 Change in Share 2021–2022
1 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China N/A 261.78 839 N/A
2 Harvard University, United States of America (USA) N/A 219.90 658 N/A
3 Max Planck Society, Germany N/A 154.31 516 N/A
4 National Institutes of Health (NIH), United States of America (USA) N/A 121.79 326 N/A
5 Stanford University, United States of America (USA) N/A 121.73 328 N/A
6 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France N/A 99.13 750 N/A
7 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States of America (USA) N/A 94.89 429 N/A
8 Yale University, United States of America (USA) N/A 89.76 221 N/A
9 University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States of America (USA) N/A 87.23 251 N/A
10 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 85.97 287 N/A
11 Cornell University, United States of America (USA) N/A 75.21 234 N/A
12 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), China N/A 74.04 410 N/A
13 University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), United States of America (USA) N/A 71.57 197 N/A
14 University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 70.14 265 N/A
15 Johns Hopkins University (JHU), United States of America (USA) N/A 69.66 216 N/A
16 Zhejiang University (ZJU), China N/A 69.65 164 N/A
17 Peking University (PKU), China N/A 69.03 292 N/A
18 Columbia University in the City of New York (CU), United States of America (USA) N/A 69.00 212 N/A
19 University of Michigan (U-M), United States of America (USA) N/A 68.16 191 N/A
20 University of Toronto (U of T), Canada N/A 65.75 179 N/A
21 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Germany N/A 65.66 363 N/A
22 University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), United States of America (USA) N/A 65.63 207 N/A
23 University of Pennsylvania (Penn), United States of America (USA) N/A 65.52 195 N/A
24 Nanjing University (NJU), China N/A 62.96 130 N/A
25 New York University (NYU), United States of America (USA) N/A 61.85 140 N/A
26 Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), United States of America (USA) N/A 61.78 198 N/A
27 The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan N/A 61.60 193 N/A
28 Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), China N/A 59.73 187 N/A
29 Tsinghua University, China N/A 59.29 232 N/A
30 University of Washington (UW), United States of America (USA) N/A 58.96 220 N/A
31 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States of America (USA) N/A 58.69 205 N/A
32 University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), United States of America (USA) N/A 58.32 115 N/A
33 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland N/A 56.71 155 N/A
34 Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), China N/A 56.69 143 N/A
35 Northwestern University (NU), United States of America (USA) N/A 54.29 128 N/A
36 The University of Chicago (UChicago), United States of America (USA) N/A 51.92 147 N/A
37 Duke University, United States of America (USA) N/A 51.73 160 N/A
38 Princeton University, United States of America (USA) N/A 51.34 123 N/A
39 University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark N/A 49.20 192 N/A
40 UCL, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 46.83 186 N/A
41 Fudan University, China N/A 46.72 155 N/A
42 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), United States of America (USA) N/A 43.96 92 N/A
43 Wuhan University (WHU), China N/A 42.59 78 N/A
44 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), United States of America (USA) N/A 41.71 95 N/A
45 Vanderbilt University (VU), United States of America (USA) N/A 41.64 116 N/A
46 Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (UK) N/A 41.19 167 N/A
47 California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States of America (USA) N/A 40.82 91 N/A
48 Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain N/A 39.55 210 N/A
49 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), United States of America (USA) N/A 39.45 155 N/A
50 The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 38.88 158 N/A
51 University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland N/A 38.71 142 N/A
52 University of California, Davis (UC Davis), United States of America (USA) N/A 38.50 136 N/A
53 The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern Medical Center), United States of America (USA) N/A 38.18 82 N/A
54 National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), France N/A 38.11 385 N/A
55 Leibniz Association, Germany N/A 37.97 219 N/A
56 The Rockefeller University, United States of America (USA) N/A 36.90 95 N/A
57 The University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada N/A 35.85 121 N/A
58 Southwest University (SWU), China N/A 35.54 59 N/A
59 University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), China N/A 35.49 142 N/A
60 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland N/A 35.25 86 N/A
61 Karolinska Institute (KI), Sweden N/A 35.17 166 N/A
62 McGill University, Canada N/A 34.89 129 N/A
63 Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI), Israel N/A 34.49 75 N/A
64 University of Bristol (UoB), United Kingdom (UK) N/A 33.50 102 N/A
65 University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), United States of America (USA) N/A 32.90 118 N/A
66 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (RU), United States of America (USA) N/A 32.90 102 N/A
67 The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), United States of America (USA) N/A 32.68 97 N/A
68 Sichuan University (SCU), China N/A 32.59 66 N/A
69 University of Southern California (USC), United States of America (USA) N/A 32.45 129 N/A
70 University of Minnesota (UMN), United States of America (USA) N/A 31.84 102 N/A
71 Xiamen University (XMU), China N/A 31.69 68 N/A
72 Kyoto University, Japan N/A 31.26 104 N/A
73 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), United Kingdom (UK) N/A 30.41 143 N/A
74 Tongji University, China N/A 28.52 108 N/A
75 The University of Utah (Utah), United States of America (USA) N/A 28.44 82 N/A
76 University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland N/A 28.43 78 N/A
77 Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), United States of America (USA) N/A 28.38 101 N/A
78 National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore N/A 28.20 107 N/A
79 Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany N/A 28.12 116 N/A
80 RIKEN, Japan N/A 27.89 122 N/A
81 Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), United States of America (USA) N/A 27.62 123 N/A
82 The Ohio State University (OSU), United States of America (USA) N/A 27.47 81 N/A
83 Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS), United States of America (USA) N/A 27.01 134 N/A
84 Utrecht University (UU), Netherlands N/A 26.67 110 N/A
85 Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), China N/A 26.16 104 N/A
86 University of Virginia (UVA), United States of America (USA) N/A 25.40 85 N/A
87 Indiana University (IU), United States of America (USA) N/A 25.26 76 N/A
88 University of California, Irvine (UCI), United States of America (USA) N/A 24.94 70 N/A
89 The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia N/A 24.61 116 N/A
90 China Agricultural University (CAU), China N/A 24.40 55 N/A
91 People's Liberation Army (PLA), China N/A 24.11 80 N/A
92 European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Germany N/A 23.96 129 N/A
93 University of Helsinki, Finland N/A 23.93 121 N/A
94 Hunan University (HNU), China N/A 23.87 34 N/A
95 University of Lausanne (UNIL), Switzerland N/A 23.79 92 N/A
96 Shandong University (SDU), China N/A 23.78 89 N/A
97 Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), Germany N/A 23.78 114 N/A
98 Scripps Research, United States of America (USA) N/A 23.47 59 N/A
99 University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), United States of America (USA) N/A 23.18 68 N/A
100 Northwest A&F University (NWAFU), China N/A 23.15 45 N/A
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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 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/territory’s publication output in 145 high-quality natural and health science publications. The publications were chosen by an independent group of researchers. 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 the data in the above table is published 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 research leaders tables.

Research Leaders tables from previous years are also updated annually to reflect any changes to the database. This means rankings and metrics may differ from the table when first released.


Numerical information only (in the tables above) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.