The Nature Index: Tracking China’s contribution to the Natural-Science Literature Innovation Initiative (NICE 2013) and its use in the Development of a Global Scientific Model

The number of natural-science papers in the Nature Index by China-based researchers increased by 194% over the course of the past three years. Lee says the implication is that US dominance in the world is in danger. “It’s yet another demonstration of how global science is shifting away from the West. She says that global collaboration will continue to grow, but may be shifting to a more regionalized model.

It’s not just infrastructure, it is much more. It is an attempt to bolster China’s economic and political influence by furthering its relations with neighbours and other strategic partners around the world. The Green Finance and Development Center at Fudan University is following the progress of the BRI. It estimates that China has spent a billion dollars on the initiative since it was launched in July 2013 and that more than a hundred countries have signed up to support it.

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.

Count and Share are used to track research output. The Count of 1 is given for every article that has at least one author from a country or institution. It means that the same article can contribute to the Count of multiple countries/territories if it has more than one author.

The number of articles varies each year in the Nature Index journals. It is achieved by calculating the percentage difference in the number of articles and the number of articles in a base year, and adjusting Share values to the base year levels.

The sum of each of the shares that A+B has contributed to the other is the amount of the bilateral collaboration score between the two institutions. 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.

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. You can see the articles by journal and article. The outputs are organized in a certain way. The page lists the country/territory’s top collaborators as well as its relationship with other organizations. Users can track an institution’s performance over time, create their own indexes and export table data.

The tables in this supplement show the leading Chinese institutions based on their article Share (Share) in different subjects in 2023 and the top rising institutions based on their change in adjusted Share from 2022 to 2023. The data was estimated using a 12 month rolling window from August to July.

The data for the article on the Belt and Road Initiative was based on a group of countries.

Chemistry in the 21st century: Where are we today? Where do we go from there? How can the United States push the way to the top of the Nature Index?

Strengths in chemistry and the physical sciences have propelled the country to the top of the Nature Index. But there is untapped potential in other subject areas.