WorldHE NS Watch: China Mainland Universities Show Strong NS Output Last Week

Against the backdrop of intensifying global competition in scientific research, publication output in Nature and Science has become one of the key benchmarks for assessing universities’ capacity for original innovation and their international academic influence.

WorldHE continuously tracks the latest and rolling 12-month Nature and Science publication data from universities worldwide, providing a dynamic view of the shifting global higher education and research landscape.

Click here to access the complete university NS publication data.​

Global University NS Publications: September 7–13, 2026

Global university output in Nature and Science remained relatively stable last week, with a total of 33 universities publishing NS papers.

The United States accounted for 11 of these universities, followed by China Mainland with 6. Both remained well ahead of other countries and regions, while the United Kingdom contributed 4 universities, underscoring the continued strength of these major research powers.

Five universities — Peking University, the University of Oxford, Westlake University, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences — each published two NS papers.

Notably, three of these five universities are from China Mainland, highlighting the strong research output of leading Chinese universities.

Global University NS Rankings: September 13, 2025–September 13, 2026

Over the rolling 12-month period, 64 universities worldwide published at least 10 papers in Nature or Science, down by one from the previous period, reflecting the increasingly competitive landscape for high-impact research.

The global Top 10 maintained the same country distribution, with six universities from the United States, three from China Mainland, and one from the United Kingdom.

Harvard University’s total output fell below 140 papers, but it continued to lead the global rankings by a wide margin with 139 NS papers, including 93 in Nature and 46 in Science. Harvard ranks first among all universities in publication output in both journals.

MIT also remains above the 100-paper mark, with 107 papers, ranking second globally. Stanford University follows with 92 papers. Together, Harvard, MIT, and Stanford form an elite research cluster at the 100-paper level and above.

The University of California, Berkeley ranks fourth with 67 NS papers. While its overall output trails the top three, Berkeley is the only university in the global Top 10 to publish more Science papers (35) than Nature papers (32).

The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Mainland, ranks fifth globally with 54 papers, making it the highest-ranked non-U.S. university. The University of Cambridge ranks sixth with 53 papers and is the only UK university in the global Top 10.

Peking University ranks seventh with 46 papers, followed by Tsinghua University in eighth place. Two universities in the University of California system — UC San Francisco and UCLA — round out the Top 10 with 39 and 36 papers, respectively.

Click here to access the complete university NS publication data.​

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.

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.

Further Reading

WorldHE NS Watch: Harvard, MIT and Stanford Lead Global Nature and Science Output in August​

Global Nature and Science Leaders, H1 2026​