Weekly Analysis: Who Leads Nature and Science Publishing?

The number of papers published in Nature and Science is widely recognized as one of the key indicators for measuring the international research influence of universities.

During the period from April 20 to April 26, 2026, a total of 19 universities ranked within the top 200 of the QS World University Rankings published papers in Nature and Science. Among them, Harvard University, University of Cambridge, Cornell University, and Fudan University each published 2 papers. Harvard University and Fudan University each published 1 paper in Nature and 1 paper in Science, while both papers published by the University of Cambridge and Cornell University were in Nature.

In addition, Stanford University, University of Oxford, National University of Singapore, Peking University, The University of Melbourne, McGill University, University of California, Los Angeles, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Duke University, City University of Hong Kong, University of California, San Diego, Pennsylvania State University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Wuhan University each published 1 paper.

Expanding the time frame to January 1 to April 26, 2026, a total of 87 universities ranked within the top 200 of the QS World University Rankings had published 417 papers in Nature and Science. Among them, 29 U.S. universities published 206 papers, 14 Chinese universities published 107 papers, and 11 U.K. universities published 34 papers.

Among these 87 universities, 11 institutions published 10 or more papers. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ranked first with 32 papers, including 24 in Nature and 8 in Science. Stanford University followed closely with 31 papers, including 12 in Science, making it the university with the highest number of Science publications. Together, these two universities alone accounted for 15% of all published papers.

Harvard University, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the University of Science and Technology of China each published 15 or more papers. Other universities with notable output included Fudan University (14 papers), University of Cambridge (13 papers), Cornell University (12 papers), University of California, Berkeley (10 papers), and Zhejiang University (10 papers).

Among these 11 universities, 5 U.S. universities published a combined total of 106 papers, 5 Chinese universities published 74 papers, and the sole U.K. representative, the University of Cambridge, published 13 papers.

Below is the list of QS top 200 universities that published 2 or more papers in Nature and Science between January 1 and April 26, 2026.

Notes: QS 2026 top 200; Nature: Article, Review Article; Science: Research Article, Review, Special-Issue Research Article; first and/or corresponding author affiliations; each unique institution counted once per paper; print issues only; data through April 26, 2026.