Nature Index, 2020

India has ranked twelfth, globally in science research output as per the recently-released Nature Index table 2020. The top five positions have gone to the United States of America, China, Germany, United Kingdom and Japan.

Note: This nature index has nothing to do with nature conservation. It has only mentioned the rankings of research institutes in natural and physical sciences.

What is the Nature Index?

• The Nature Index is a database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 82 high-quality science journals.
• It serves as an indicator of high-quality research in the Natural and Physical Sciences.
• The database is compiled by Nature Research, a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals.
• The index provides a close to the real-time proxy of high-quality research output and collaboration at the institutional, national and regional level.

India’s achievements

• Globally the top-rated Indian institutions in this list are CSIR, a group of 39 institutions at the 160th position and IISc Bangalore at the 184^th
• Three of the autonomous institutions of the DST have found their place among the top 30 Indian Institutions.
• Keeping out CSIR, which is a cluster of institutions, IACS Kolkata is among the top three institutions in quality Chemistry Research in India.
• NCASR Banglore ranks 4^th among academic institutions in life sciences, 10^th in Chemistry and Physical Sciences, 10^th among Indian academic institutions, and 469^th in the global ranking.