NEWS

Nature Index expands to applied and social sciences
with release of 2026 Research Leaders tables

Nature Index now covers seven subject areas and adopts a recalibrated methodology

Today, the Nature Index has introduced updates to broaden its disciplinary coverage and refine its methodology with the release of the 2026 Research Leaders tables, marking a major step in the evolution of the database since its launch in 2014. The 2026 tables (based on full year 2025 data) show that China continues to lead globally and the East Asia region in general has outperformed others in the Nature Index.

For the first time, the Nature Index incorporates 17 applied-science journals and one conference and 15 social-science journals into the database. These new journals were selected following a global survey of more than 4,000 researchers on where they would choose to publish their most significant work. The Nature Index now tracks 177 journals plus one conference across seven subject areas, with 84% of them published outside Springer Nature.

The Nature Index has also adopted an article-level subject classification system, rather than assigning subject areas based on a journal’s primary discipline. Categorizing each article’s subject individually helps to provide a more accurate reflection of disciplinary coverage in the database.

To support comparison, articles from the newly added journals have been incorporated for 2024 and 2025, and the updated subject classification has been applied retrospectively across the database.

“With expanded disciplinary coverage and a recalibrated methodology, the Nature Index now provides a more comprehensive and precise view of high-quality research output,” said Simon Baker, Chief Editor, Nature Index. “In terms of the results, we are continuing to see extremely strong performance from China, while there is also evidence that the wider East Asia region is growing output at a faster rate than Europe and North America.”

Key regional highlights:

• China remains the world’s leading contributing country, with research output rising 22.4% from 2024 to 2025, and it is the only county in the top ten to achieve double-digit growth.

• Japan, South Korea and India all rank among the global top ten, with Japan and South Korea each recording almost 10% growth in research output, outpacing the Western countries in the top ten.

• The remaining countries in the global top ten include four European nations and two North American nations. US and Germany are among the top five across all seven subject areas, with the US leading in health sciences and social sciences, and the UK ranking in the top five in all areas except chemistry.

Institutional performance:

• The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) retains its global No. 1 position overall and across most subject areas except health sciences and social sciences. Nine of the top ten institutions are based in China, up from eight last year, with Zhejiang University rising to No. 2.

• Harvard University moves to No. 3 overall but leads in health and social sciences, and nine of the top ten institutions in social sciences are US-based.

• In biological sciences, Harvard ranks No. 2, and the Max Planck Society ranks No. 3. European institutions perform strongly in physical sciences, with four in the top ten, including Max Planck Society (No. 2) and Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics (No. 4).

• The Helmholtz Association for Nuclear Physics ranks No. 4 in Earth & environmental sciences.

All data and analysis for this year’s Research Leaders can be found here. The data is based on full-year 2025 data.

https://www.nature.com/nature-index/research-leaders/2026/