Nature Announces Top 10 R&D Institutes
Every year, Nature produces an official report ranking the top 10 Research and Development (R&D) institutions in pharmacology. It is calculated based on the institutions’ output in 82 natural science journals and the proportion of authors from an institution on a given article compared to the number of affiliated institutions per article.
According to Nature, data informing the scores are derived from a “relatively small portion” of total papers. However, the list does not consider the size of a country or institution.
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This year, Chinese research institutes appear to have surpassed their American counterparts. Since 2020, a number of US universities have vacated the top 10 list, whilst the evident increase in Chinese institutions mirrors the rise of Chinese biotechs in recent years.
The National Institutes of Health, Yale University, and the University of California, San Diego, failed to qualify this year, despite an 11.1% increase in US investment for medical and health R&D between 2019 and 2020.
The complete list of rankings for Nature’s official 2021 list of top R&D Institutes are as follows:
1.) Chinese Academy of Sciences
Nature Index Score: 1,963.00
The success of the Chinese Academy of Science is underpinned by strength in chemistry, although only a subset of its publications is in the area of drug development.
2.) Harvard University
Nature Index Score: 910.93
The prestigious Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, made headlines when the official US patent office approved its CRISPR technology.
3.) Max Planck Society
Nature Index Score: 782.72
Germany’s Max Planck Society released promising data on a new tuberculosis vaccine.
4.) French National Centre for Scientific Research
Nature Index Score: 675.69
In the last 20 years, The French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris has supervised the launch of more than 1,700 startups.
5.) Stanford University
Nature Index Score: 606.51
The California-based college has been gaining notable traction for its CRISPR pioneer Stanley Qi and his research output.
6.) Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Nature Index Score: 565.07
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres produced impactful papers on topics including the pathophysiology of lung cancer and drivers of oncogenesis in basal-like breast cancer.
7.) Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nature Index Score: 533.13
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology managed to secure its research prowess through its collaborative work with the Broad Institute, a prestigious research outpost operated in conjunction with Harvard.
8.) University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Nature Index Score: 530.20
The university wing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences also benefitted from the academy's global presence and accomplishments.
9.) University of Science and Technology of China
Nature Index Score: 502.50
Most notably, the University of Science and Technology of China published research about COVID-19 during its outbreak, finding that the cytokines GM-CSF and IL-6 contribute to the immune overreaction seen with the disease.
10.) Peking University
Nature Index Score: 492.69
One of the more prominent biotechs to have spun out of Peking University is Edigene, which made history when it received the first approval in China for a gene editing therapy to enter human trials.
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