WorldHE NS Watch: Global Universities Step Up Nature and Science Output as European Research Surges

Last week, universities around the world maintained a strong presence in the prestigious journals Nature and Science, with 48 institutions publishing papers in the two journals. European universities recorded a particularly strong showing, highlighting the continued strength of the region’s leading research institutions.

Meanwhile, 63 universities worldwide have published at least 10 papers in Nature or Science over the past year. The overall top 10 ranking remains relatively stable, with the world’s leading research universities continuing to dominate high-impact scientific publishing.

WorldHE continuously tracks universities’ latest and annual publication output in Nature and Science, providing a snapshot of the shifting global landscape of higher education and research.

Click here to access the full dataset of university publications in Nature and Science.​

Global University Output in Nature and Science Last Week

October 12–18, 2026

Of the 48 universities worldwide that published papers in Nature or Science last week, 16 were in the United States, six in the United Kingdom and five in mainland China. Germany, Switzerland and Spain each had three institutions represented.

The strong showing by European universities points to a concentrated wave of research output across the region, underscoring the continued position of established European research powers in the global scientific landscape.

Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Tsinghua University each published three papers in Nature or Science last week, with all three serving as corresponding-author institutions. Columbia and UC Berkeley each published three Nature papers, while Tsinghua published two papers in Nature and one in Science.

Eight universities — Harvard University, the University of Washington Seattle, King’s College London, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, ETH Zurich, Yale University and Zhejiang University — each published two papers in the two journals.

The institutions span the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and mainland China, illustrating the broad and increasingly competitive nature of high-impact research worldwide.

Global University Rankings by Nature and Science Output Over the Past Year

October 18, 2025–October 18, 2026

Over the past year, 63 universities worldwide have published at least 10 papers in Nature or Science, underscoring the intensifying competition among leading research institutions.

The overall top 10 remains dominated by the United States, mainland China and the United Kingdom, with five US universities, three Chinese universities and two UK universities making the list.

Harvard University leads by a substantial margin, with 144 papers in total, including 94 in Nature and 50 in Science. It ranks first among universities in publication output in both journals.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the only other university to surpass the 100-paper mark, with 109 publications, placing it second. Stanford University follows with 96 papers. Together, the three institutions form a leading cluster of universities with more than 90 publications across Nature and Science over the year.

The University of California, Berkeley ranks fourth with 59 papers, including 31 in Nature and 28 in Science. Its publication profile marks a shift from the previous pattern, when its output in Science exceeded that in Nature.

The University of Cambridge ranks fifth with 55 papers, making it the highest-ranked university outside the United States. The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences follows in sixth place with 54 papers.

Peking University ranks seventh with 47 papers, while Tsinghua University is eighth with 46. The University of California, San Francisco ranks ninth, followed by the University of Oxford in 10th place with 36 papers.

Click here to access the full dataset of university publications in Nature and Science.​

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.