2023 Research Leaders: Leading institutions in physical 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 292.25 1112 N/A
2 Max Planck Society, Germany N/A 188.17 769 N/A
3 National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Italy N/A 147.19 704 N/A
4 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France N/A 141.43 1090 N/A
5 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Germany N/A 124.80 625 N/A
6 University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), China N/A 120.40 455 N/A
7 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), China N/A 112.60 602 N/A
8 The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Japan N/A 101.29 391 N/A
9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States of America (USA) N/A 88.26 462 N/A
10 Harvard University, United States of America (USA) N/A 86.23 387 N/A
11 Stanford University, United States of America (USA) N/A 79.27 343 N/A
12 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland N/A 75.87 210 N/A
13 Peking University (PKU), China N/A 75.72 445 N/A
14 Nanjing University (NJU), China N/A 75.69 289 N/A
15 Tsinghua University, China N/A 75.12 379 N/A
16 Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Russia N/A 71.83 391 N/A
17 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 70.62 246 N/A
18 Princeton University, United States of America (USA) N/A 70.31 345 N/A
19 Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain N/A 63.43 531 N/A
20 California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States of America (USA) N/A 62.72 372 N/A
21 University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), United States of America (USA) N/A 62.34 397 N/A
22 University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 57.34 306 N/A
23 European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland N/A 56.12 313 N/A
24 The University of Chicago (UChicago), United States of America (USA) N/A 54.29 273 N/A
25 University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), United States of America (USA) N/A 54.27 196 N/A
26 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), United States of America (USA) N/A 53.74 239 N/A
27 Kyoto University, Japan N/A 53.51 167 N/A
28 Durham University, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 45.68 152 N/A
29 Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany N/A 45.30 216 N/A
30 Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), China N/A 44.34 211 N/A
31 University of Maryland (UMD), United States of America (USA) N/A 43.46 367 N/A
32 University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder), United States of America (USA) N/A 43.22 296 N/A
33 Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), Israel N/A 42.63 124 N/A
34 RIKEN, Japan N/A 41.90 201 N/A
35 Imperial College London (ICL), United Kingdom (UK) N/A 41.32 208 N/A
36 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States of America (USA) N/A 40.53 270 N/A
37 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), United States of America (USA) N/A 40.22 201 N/A
38 University of Michigan (U-M), United States of America (USA) N/A 40.08 276 N/A
39 Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), China N/A 38.15 200 N/A
40 National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), Italy N/A 37.63 185 N/A
41 Tohoku University, Japan N/A 36.91 228 N/A
42 Johns Hopkins University (JHU), United States of America (USA) N/A 36.33 263 N/A
43 Homi Bhabha National Institute (HBNI), India N/A 35.67 144 N/A
44 Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China N/A 35.01 84 N/A
45 State University of New York at Stony Brook (SUNY Stony Brook), United States of America (USA) N/A 34.75 245 N/A
46 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), United States of America (USA) N/A 34.20 257 N/A
47 The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), United States of America (USA) N/A 34.18 210 N/A
48 University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark N/A 33.79 182 N/A
49 Columbia University in the City of New York (CU), United States of America (USA) N/A 33.62 148 N/A
50 Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), China N/A 33.58 102 N/A
51 Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), United States of America (USA) N/A 33.37 193 N/A
52 University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), United States of America (USA) N/A 33.19 249 N/A
53 Sorbonne University, France N/A 32.54 385 N/A
54 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), United States of America (USA) N/A 32.39 142 N/A
55 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland N/A 31.77 156 N/A
56 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), United States of America (USA) N/A 31.55 231 N/A
57 Beihang University (BUAA), China N/A 31.23 208 N/A
58 University of Paris-Saclay, France N/A 30.97 336 N/A
59 Zhejiang University (ZJU), China N/A 30.71 176 N/A
60 The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), France N/A 30.53 343 N/A
61 Wuhan University (WHU), China N/A 30.40 130 N/A
62 Fudan University, China N/A 30.35 205 N/A
63 University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland N/A 30.32 171 N/A
64 Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI), Canada N/A 30.24 98 N/A
65 Northwestern University (NU), United States of America (USA) N/A 30.03 131 N/A
66 King's College London (KCL), United Kingdom (UK) N/A 29.95 98 N/A
67 University of Minnesota (UMN), United States of America (USA) N/A 29.49 245 N/A
68 Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), India N/A 29.49 120 N/A
69 Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea N/A 29.27 74 N/A
70 Leibniz Association, Germany N/A 28.67 263 N/A
71 Cornell University, United States of America (USA) N/A 28.42 140 N/A
72 Uppsala University (UU), Sweden N/A 28.42 187 N/A
73 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Germany N/A 28.37 167 N/A
74 University of Washington (UW), United States of America (USA) N/A 28.22 253 N/A
75 Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), Germany N/A 28.14 169 N/A
76 Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), United States of America (USA) N/A 27.60 148 N/A
77 Yale University, United States of America (USA) N/A 27.51 242 N/A
78 Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), Poland N/A 27.33 170 N/A
79 National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore N/A 27.24 85 N/A
80 Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), United Kingdom (UK) N/A 27.02 94 N/A
81 Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore N/A 26.77 107 N/A
82 The University of Osaka (UOsaka), Japan N/A 26.57 136 N/A
83 University of Warsaw (UW), Poland N/A 26.43 112 N/A
84 Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), United States of America (USA) N/A 26.43 154 N/A
85 University of Hamburg (UHH), Germany N/A 25.71 165 N/A
86 Heidelberg University (Uni Heidelberg), Germany N/A 25.37 167 N/A
87 University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States of America (USA) N/A 24.97 106 N/A
88 University of Würzburg (JMU), Germany N/A 24.76 107 N/A
89 Lanzhou University (LZU), China N/A 24.71 91 N/A
90 The University of Arizona (Arizona), United States of America (USA) N/A 23.80 203 N/A
91 The University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada N/A 23.22 108 N/A
92 University of Pennsylvania (Penn), United States of America (USA) N/A 23.22 76 N/A
93 The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (UK) N/A 23.20 148 N/A
94 Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Spain N/A 23.14 98 N/A
95 Nagoya University, Japan N/A 23.00 117 N/A
96 Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (IIT), Israel N/A 22.97 74 N/A
97 University of Barcelona (UB), Spain N/A 22.96 107 N/A
98 Purdue University, United States of America (USA) N/A 22.83 129 N/A
99 Sichuan University (SCU), China N/A 22.66 86 N/A
100 Rice University, United States of America (USA) N/A 22.64 110 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.