The country’s dominance in the Nature Index: Contributing from outside the United States to health-sciences research and how to assess them
The country’s dominance means that it comes top for Share in all but seven of the journals tracked by the Nature Index in the subject. This includes large general journals such as Nature Communications and specialist medical publications such as The New England Journal of Medicine. Two examples of how authors from other places made the largest contribution were in the journals PLOS Medicine and Gut.
There are five nations that have a share in the database that makes up at least 29% of their overall footprint. Denmark, whose research is boosted by the success of companies such as Novo Nordisk, has the highest ratio in this regard at almost 40%.
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the leader in high-quality health-sciences research and its involvement in the top institutional partnership in the field is no surprise. But its dominance does not extend to all the other leading collaborations, some of which involve institutions outside the United States.
A lot of money has been invested in health sciences research, but this hasn’t translated to a quicker introduction of new therapies. The complexity of clinical trials is a problem that researchers hope artificial intelligence can help to address. Others are rethinking how therapies are assessed in trials to make the results more meaningful. For example, could data impact people with Alzheimer’s and other progressive conditions by measuring how many ‘good years’ a medication can give, rather than comparing scores on cognitive tests?
Outside clinical trials, there are structural weaknesses in health-sciences research that need urgent attention, such as the lack of women in leadership positions. If institutions do not work harder to increase diversity at the top levels of academia, they risk damaging the talent pipeline and ultimately health outcomes for everyone.
The Nature Index: A Tool for Building Bilateral Collaborations between Institutions, Countries and Regions. An Accessibility Supplement with Biomedical Information
Each query will return a profile page that lists the country or institution’s recent outputs, from which it is possible to drill down for more information. Articles can be displayed by journal, and then by article. Research outputs are organized by subject area. The institution’s relationship with other organizations can be listed on the pages. Users can track an institution’s performance over time, create their own indexes and export table data
The bilateral collaboration score (CS) between two institutions A+B is the sum of each of their Shares on the papers to which both have contributed. A bilateral collaboration can be between any two institutions or countries/territories co-authoring at least one article in the journals tracked by the Nature Index.
The number of articles in the Nature Index journals varies every year based on adjusted share. It’s done by adjusting Share values to base year levels and calculating the percentage difference between the total number of articles and the number in a base year.
A description of the terminology and methodology used in this supplement, and a guide to the functionality that is available free online at natureindex.com.