UMD Ranked Among World’s Best in Science Research Productivity

The Nature Index, a new ranking from the journal Nature, rates the University of Maryland No. 55 in the world for producing high-quality science research publications. UMD ranks No. 15 among public U.S. universities and No. 29 among all U.S. universities.

The ranking, which includes non-academic institutions, is based on research productivity in the world's top science journals, which include a total of 68 journals that comprise the Nature Index.

UMD also made Nature Index specialty lists of the top 50 institutions in other areas:

No. 35 in the world in Total Article Count (No. 6 among public U.S. universities, No. 2 among Big Ten universities, and No. 13 among all U.S. universities)

No. 26 in the world in Physical Sciences (No. 7 among public U.S. universities and No. 12 among all U.S. universities)

No. 46 in the world in Earth and Environmental Sciences (No. 18 among public U.S. universities and No. 24 among all U.S. universities)

To create the ranking, Nature editors identified top journals with the help of an outside panel of experts and an independent survey asking scientists "where they would want to publish their most significant research." The survey yielded a list of 68 elite journals in chemistry, life sciences, physical sciences, and earth and environmental sciences. Editors counted the number of times each institution's authors appeared in the journals, adjusting fractionally for co-authorship.

The result quantifies the institutions and countries that publish the most in the top scientific journals. The U.S. led the list in national productivity, followed by China. The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the single most productive institution worldwide, followed by Harvard University.

Nature is making data from the index available online to researchers and has pledged to update the data regularly to create a rolling window on research productivity.

For more information on UMD's ranking, visit the Nature Index website.

Published December 9, 2014