WorldHE NS Watch: China Mainland Edges US This Week

As global competition in scientific research continues to intensify, publication output in Nature and Science has become one of the most widely recognized indicators of a university's research excellence, capacity for original innovation, and international academic influence.

WorldHE continuously tracks both the latest weekly publications and annual research output in Nature and Science by universities around the world, offering timely insights into the evolving global landscape of higher education and scientific research.

Click here to access the complete dataset of university NS publications.​

Weekly Global University NS Publications

Between 29 June and 5 July 2026, 57 universities worldwide published research papers in Nature and Science. Universities from China Mainland accounted for 16 institutions, while the United States contributed 14, placing them well ahead of all other countries and regions and highlighting their strong research momentum. The United Kingdom had nine universities and Germany had seven universities publishing NS papers, reflecting the continued strength of these traditional scientific powerhouses.

Among the week's most notable contributors, the University of Cambridge published one paper in Nature and two papers in Science, focusing on the Hormone Cell Atlas, fibroblasts, and the complex dynamics of the inner Earth. Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego each published two papers across the two journals.

Global University NS Rankings: The Past 12 Months

According to WorldHE's tracking of publications between 5 July 2025 and 5 July 2026, 70 universities worldwide published at least 10 papers in Nature and Science.

Among the top 10 institutions by total NS publications, the United States claimed five places, China Mainland secured three, and the United Kingdom took two, together forming the world's leading tier of research-intensive universities.

Harvard University remained the clear leader with 139 papers, including 87 in Nature and 52 in Science. Remarkably, 135 of these publications listed Harvard as the corresponding-author institution, meaning Harvard researchers served as corresponding authors on nearly every paper. This demonstrates the university's exceptional ability not only to participate in high-impact international collaborations but also to lead them.

Stanford University (96 papers) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (93 papers) ranked second and third, respectively.

With 65 NS papers, the University of California, Berkeley placed fourth globally. Although its overall output trails the top three institutions, Berkeley remains the only university among the top 15 whose Science publications (36) exceeded its Nature publications (29), reflecting its long-standing strengths in astrophysics, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology. Another U.S. institution, the University of Washington Seattle, ranked tenth with 39 NS papers.

Beyond the leading institutions, the United States continues to demonstrate remarkable depth in research excellence. Among the 30 universities worldwide that published more than 20 NS papers, 18 are located in the United States, accounting for more than half of the total and reinforcing the country's dominant position in global scientific research.

Among universities in China Mainland, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences ranked fifth globally with 53 papers, making it the highest-ranked institution outside the United States. Tsinghua University followed in sixth place with 46 papers, while Peking University published 40 papers, ranking ninth globally.

Universities in China Mainland have firmly established themselves as the world's second-largest research force after the United States. Their combined publication output now significantly exceeds that of traditional research powers such as the United Kingdom and Germany, with 13 universities producing more than 10 NS papers over the past year.

In the United Kingdom, the University of Cambridge published 45 NS papers, while the University of Oxford published 42, ranking seventh and eighth, respectively. Both institutions continue to demonstrate the leadership capabilities that have made Europe's top universities globally influential in initiating and directing major scientific research projects.

Europe's broader research landscape remains distinguished by both depth and diversity. While numerous universities contribute consistently to Nature and Science, few individual institutions match the publication scale of Harvard or MIT. In Switzerland, ETH Zurich ranked 15th globally with 32 papers, while École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) produced 14 papers. In the United Kingdom, Imperial College London (21 papers) and University College London (17 papers) also maintained strong publication records. Germany's LMU Munich (13 papers), Technical University of Munich (13 papers), and Humboldt University of Berlin (11 papers), together with France's Paris Sciences et Lettres University (14 papers) and Université Paris Cité (12 papers), collectively represent the core strength of continental Europe's research ecosystem.

Methodology

For Nature, only publications classified as Article and Review Article were included. For Science, the analysis includes Research Article, Special-Issue Research Article, and Review.

The study covers papers formally published between June 18, 2025, and June 18, 2026.

Only the physically affiliated first author was counted as the first author. All corresponding-author affiliations were included, with each affiliated institution counted once. If the first-author institution and the corresponding-author institution were the same, the publication was counted only once for that institution.

Only formally published articles were included in the analysis. Advance online publications and papers in pre-publication status were excluded.