2023 Research Leaders: Leading institutions in Earth & environmental 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 235.51 811 N/A
2 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Germany N/A 85.07 298 N/A
3 Nanjing University (NJU), China N/A 60.50 202 N/A
4 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), China N/A 56.77 293 N/A
5 Peking University (PKU), China N/A 55.15 197 N/A
6 China Meteorological Administration (CMA), China N/A 54.08 172 N/A
7 Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), China N/A 50.43 159 N/A
8 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France N/A 50.36 471 N/A
9 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland N/A 46.38 159 N/A
10 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), United States of America (USA) N/A 45.44 206 N/A
11 China University of Geosciences (CUG), China N/A 42.11 185 N/A
12 University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), China N/A 40.27 195 N/A
13 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States of America (USA) N/A 40.15 196 N/A
14 Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), China N/A 39.50 271 N/A
15 California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States of America (USA) N/A 39.16 160 N/A
16 Columbia University in the City of New York (CU), United States of America (USA) N/A 38.58 150 N/A
17 University of Washington (UW), United States of America (USA) N/A 37.44 105 N/A
18 China University of Geosciences, Beijing (CUGB), China N/A 34.27 143 N/A
19 University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States of America (USA) N/A 33.48 109 N/A
20 Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST), China N/A 33.40 129 N/A
21 Stanford University, United States of America (USA) N/A 30.69 93 N/A
22 Zhejiang University (ZJU), China N/A 30.32 71 N/A
23 National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), United States of America (USA) N/A 29.91 120 N/A
24 Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), China N/A 29.79 85 N/A
25 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), United States of America (USA) N/A 28.90 115 N/A
26 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 27.50 94 N/A
27 Harvard University, United States of America (USA) N/A 27.02 97 N/A
28 University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), United States of America (USA) N/A 27.02 108 N/A
29 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), United States of America (USA) N/A 26.29 87 N/A
30 Lanzhou University (LZU), China N/A 26.15 59 N/A
31 The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan N/A 25.91 80 N/A
32 University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder), United States of America (USA) N/A 25.88 164 N/A
33 Wuhan University (WHU), China N/A 24.66 52 N/A
34 Colorado State University, United States of America (USA) N/A 24.48 97 N/A
35 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States of America (USA) N/A 24.01 88 N/A
36 Tsinghua University, China N/A 23.42 83 N/A
37 University of Toronto (U of T), Canada N/A 22.59 83 N/A
38 Yale University, United States of America (USA) N/A 22.55 111 N/A
39 University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 22.47 86 N/A
40 China Earthquake Administration (CEA), China N/A 22.15 63 N/A
41 University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UH Mānoa), United States of America (USA) N/A 21.42 117 N/A
42 Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Japan N/A 21.03 74 N/A
43 National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), Italy N/A 20.86 61 N/A
44 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States of America (USA) N/A 20.57 87 N/A
45 Utrecht University (UU), Netherlands N/A 20.36 71 N/A
46 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), United States of America (USA) N/A 20.06 62 N/A
47 University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), United States of America (USA) N/A 19.84 77 N/A
48 Monash University, Australia N/A 19.36 66 N/A
49 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), United States of America (USA) N/A 19.34 69 N/A
50 The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), United States of America (USA) N/A 19.22 96 N/A
51 Texas A&M University (TAMU), United States of America (USA) N/A 18.96 92 N/A
52 Ocean University of China (OUC), China N/A 18.64 131 N/A
53 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), United States of America (USA) N/A 18.60 54 N/A
54 University of Minnesota (UMN), United States of America (USA) N/A 18.30 71 N/A
55 Tongji University, China N/A 17.98 74 N/A
56 Fudan University, China N/A 17.62 67 N/A
57 Beijing Normal University (BNU), China N/A 17.58 86 N/A
58 Max Planck Society, Germany N/A 17.48 84 N/A
59 Curtin University, Australia N/A 17.48 51 N/A
60 The University of Arizona (Arizona), United States of America (USA) N/A 17.41 81 N/A
61 Leibniz Association, Germany N/A 17.20 79 N/A
62 Brown University, United States of America (USA) N/A 16.35 58 N/A
63 Tohoku University, Japan N/A 16.04 44 N/A
64 University of Michigan (U-M), United States of America (USA) N/A 15.74 68 N/A
65 University of Alberta (U of A), Canada N/A 15.73 45 N/A
66 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), United States of America (USA) N/A 15.67 75 N/A
67 Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain N/A 15.56 84 N/A
68 University of Bergen (UIB), Norway N/A 15.54 63 N/A
69 University of Leeds, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 15.42 81 N/A
70 University of California, Irvine (UCI), United States of America (USA) N/A 15.15 71 N/A
71 University of Oslo (UiO), Norway N/A 15.15 52 N/A
72 University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), United States of America (USA) N/A 15.02 67 N/A
73 University of California, Riverside (UCR), United States of America (USA) N/A 14.84 43 N/A
74 Princeton University, United States of America (USA) N/A 14.81 75 N/A
75 The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia N/A 14.57 43 N/A
76 Rice University, United States of America (USA) N/A 14.57 49 N/A
77 Oregon State University, United States of America (USA) N/A 14.52 66 N/A
78 University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Australia N/A 14.51 58 N/A
79 Tianjin University (TJU), China N/A 14.31 153 N/A
80 Australian National University (ANU), Australia N/A 14.24 55 N/A
81 Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore N/A 14.06 37 N/A
82 Nankai University (NKU), China N/A 14.00 24 N/A
83 French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), France N/A 13.67 226 N/A
84 University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark N/A 13.55 57 N/A
85 China Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), China N/A 13.53 62 N/A
86 Stockholm University, Sweden N/A 13.48 50 N/A
87 The University of Oklahoma (OU), United States of America (USA) N/A 13.44 89 N/A
88 Cornell University, United States of America (USA) N/A 13.27 62 N/A
89 Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (UK) N/A 13.19 51 N/A
90 Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Russia N/A 13.05 57 N/A
91 McGill University, Canada N/A 12.90 71 N/A
92 Arizona State University (ASU), United States of America (USA) N/A 12.46 64 N/A
93 University of Liverpool, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 12.01 47 N/A
94 National Research Council (CNR), Italy N/A 11.94 51 N/A
95 University of Bristol (UoB), United Kingdom (UK) N/A 11.90 64 N/A
96 University of Oregon (UO), United States of America (USA) N/A 11.88 31 N/A
97 Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), China N/A 11.83 57 N/A
98 The University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada N/A 11.81 50 N/A
99 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), United States of America (USA) N/A 11.72 45 N/A
100 University of Southern California (USC), United States of America (USA) N/A 11.43 36 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.