UW News

June 19, 2013

UW seventh in world for articles in Nature and Nature’s research journals

News and Information

The University of Washington has been ranked seventh in the world for the number of journal articles published in 2012 in Nature or one of Nature’s main monthly research journals, some of the most widely cited journals in science.

The UW also ranked fifth among institutions in the United States in the Nature Publishing Index that ranks countries and institutions according to their output of primary research articles in 18 Nature research journals. The journals cover a broad spectrum of research in the life sciences, physical and chemical sciences and medicine. Articles, letters and brief communications were included in the counts.

The index, according to the publishers, “takes into account the number of affiliated institutions per author and the percentage of authors per institution.”

The only U.S. institutions ranked higher were Harvard, Stanford, MIT and the National Institutes of Health.

Within specific subject areas, the UW was ranked fifth globally in earth sciences and seventh in life sciences.

The research papers that provided the UW ranking were published in 14 of the Nature journals, including 31 papers published in Nature itself.

Nature, founded in 1869, is the leading weekly international scientific journal, according to its website. Online, nature.com provides more than 6 million visitors per month with access to its family of publications and online databases and services.  Eighteen Nature titles are in the top-50 most highly cited journals, according to an independent 2011 report. Articles in Nature alone were cited 526,505 times.