The Nature Index: Leading countries 2020

According to the Nature Index, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic brought an end to China’s run of high growth in output in the Nature Index. After growing 15.5% from 2018 to 2019, China’s adjusted Share in the Nature Index slowed to a 1.1% increase from 2019 to 2020, by far its slowest growth since at least 2015. By contrast, most other leading locations slowed or reversed declines of the previous four years.

Japan’s adjusted Share increased by 4.2%, for example, a turnaround from negative growth in each of the previous four years, while the United States’ rate of decline slowed from 4.4% to 1.3%. Germany and South Korea were the only other countries among the ten leaders to show growth, of 0.5% and 2% respectively, though in South Korea’s case growth was slower than the previous year.

The Nature index is a database of author affiliations and institutional relationships. The index tracks contributions to research articles published in 82 high-quality natural science journals, chosen by an independent group of researchers. It provides absolute and fractional counts of article publication at the institutional and national level and, as such, is an indicator of global high-quality research output and collaboration.