2023 Research Leaders: Leading government institutions

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

Table criteria

Position Institution Share 2022 Count 2022
1 Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China 2054.02 6893
2 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France 598.10 4341
3 National Institutes of Health (NIH), United States of America (USA) 447.59 1309
4 Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain 196.02 1354
5 National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Italy 155.43 759
6 National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), France 139.56 1546
7 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), United States of America (USA) 136.70 718
8 RIKEN, Japan 130.20 573
9 People's Liberation Army (PLA), China 123.16 554
10 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, United States of America (USA) 121.98 907
11 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States of America (USA) 95.88 546
12 Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), United States of America (USA) 92.99 485
13 Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), Czech Republic 91.37 398
14 The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), France 87.46 879
15 National Research Council (CNR), Italy 86.65 509
16 National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan 83.65 360
17 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), United Kingdom (UK) 83.57 707
18 Institute for Basic Science (IBS), South Korea 83.52 347
19 Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), United States of America (USA) 81.52 408
20 Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), United States of America (USA) 81.05 360
21 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), United States of America (USA) 79.94 350
22 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), United States of America (USA) 78.75 234
23 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), United States of America (USA) 77.02 289
24 Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India 70.95 176
25 China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), China 70.88 280
26 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), United States of America (USA) 70.23 262
27 Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), Poland 68.90 312
28 Academia Sinica, Taiwan 64.34 305
29 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), United States of America (USA) 60.84 284
30 Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore 60.25 345
31 China Meteorological Administration (CMA), China 59.72 197
32 Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), China 58.68 464
33 Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), United States of America (USA) 57.99 295
34 European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland 57.45 324
35 Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII), Spain 54.37 524
36 National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan 52.85 165
37 Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), India 50.21 172
38 Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), South Korea 50.02 186
39 European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Germany 48.16 286
40 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), United States of America (USA) 46.94 176
41 Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), China 45.09 194
42 Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Switzerland 44.61 259
43 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), United States of America (USA) 42.01 144
44 Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), Hungary 41.09 247
45 Sandia National Laboratories, United States of America (USA) 38.50 136
46 National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), Italy 37.90 192
47 National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Argentina 37.29 284
48 Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Italy 36.04 125
49 Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), Austria 33.13 263
50 China Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), China 31.95 145
51 National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), France 30.17 470
52 National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS), Japan 29.99 180
53 French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), France 29.41 536
54 The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia 28.29 198
55 Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Japan 25.71 101
56 NWO-I, the Institutes Organisation of NWO, Netherlands 25.61 236
57 Smithsonian Institution, United States of America (USA) 24.23 252
58 China Earthquake Administration (CEA), China 23.87 70
59 Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), China 23.36 117
60 National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), Italy 22.58 70
61 Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Spain 22.21 89
62 Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, China 22.20 112
63 Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), Switzerland 21.41 77
64 National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), United States of America (USA) 20.83 71
65 National Research Center Kurchatov Institute (NRCKI), Russia 20.75 220
66 iBRIC+, India 19.55 47
67 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), United States of America (USA) 19.40 52
68 Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS), South Korea 19.16 53
69 India Department of Space (DOS), India 18.94 38
70 High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Japan 18.34 173
71 UK Health Security Agency, United Kingdom (UK) 18.07 69
72 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), United States of America (USA) 17.84 132
73 Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy 17.76 139
74 Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA), Switzerland 17.75 63
75 Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Russia 17.72 192
76 Brazil Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication (MCTIC), Brazil 17.18 149
77 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), United States of America (USA) 16.28 131
78 Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), Norway 16.15 68
79 National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), India 15.27 99
80 NERC British Antarctic Survey (BAS), United Kingdom (UK) 14.24 49
81 National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC), Taiwan 14.09 93
82 IMDEA Institutes, Spain 14.03 68
83 Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Netherlands 13.70 101
84 European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), France 13.60 95
85 Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI), Japan 13.25 114
86 State Administration for Market Regulation, China 12.81 57
87 National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing (NIBS), China 12.58 64
88 Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Canada 11.97 56
89 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), United States of America (USA) 11.96 47
90 Research Organization of Information and Systems (ROIS), Japan 11.88 75
91 Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Australia 11.80 88
92 Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), South Korea 11.61 47
93 The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU), Ukraine 11.53 148
94 Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Japan 11.41 72
95 Japan Institute for Health Security (JIHS), Japan 11.37 63
96 Jozef Stefan Institute (IJS), Slovenia 11.07 85
97 Guangdong Academy of Sciences (GDAS), China 10.87 45
98 Natural Resources Canada, Canada 10.41 46
99 National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST), Japan 9.98 44
100 Netherlands Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS), Netherlands 9.89 50
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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.