Chinese dominance continued down the rankings, with Nanjing University – one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China – joining hands with Beijing’s renowned Peking University and Tsinghua University to take fourth, fifth and sixth places, respectively.
Stanford placed seventh while Zhejiang University, known for its engineering, computer science and technology programmes, was ranked eighth. Next was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 10th place was Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, in the southern province of Guangdong.
Britain’s Oxford and Cambridge universities only made it to the 16th and 19th spots, respectively, despite being ranked second and fourth in this year’s QS World University Rankings, compiled by higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds.
Sun Yat-sen University, which ranks 267 in the QS list, overtook the University of Oxford by making 22 per cent more contributions to the world’s published high-quality research, according to the Nature Index.
Some North American universities also received low scores from the Nature Index compared with their QS rankings.
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which is ranked sixth best in the world by QS, placed 47th in the Nature list. University of Chicago, in 10th place on the QS ranking, was in the 51st spot in terms of research output.
The highest placed Chinese universities in the QS rankings are Peking University at No 12 and Tsinghua University in 14th place. The QS list ranks Nanjing University at No 133, with USTC placed 94th. UCAS is not included in the QS ranking.
A look at the Nature Index between 2015 and 2023 shows how rapidly China has been closing the gap with the US in terms of high-quality research output.
China’s share of quality published research – a signature metric of the index – was 37 per cent of the US output in 2015. By 2020, that had risen to 69 per cent. In this year’s list, China’s share has overtaken the United States’ contribution by 20 per cent.
Among the four major disciplines tracked by the index – chemistry, Earth and environment, life sciences, and physical sciences – Chinese universities have a clear lead in chemistry.
After overtaking US contributions in the field of chemistry in 2018, Chinese institutions this year contributed more than twice as much research as their American counterparts on the list.
In physics, USTC, Tsinghua University and UCAS took the top three places in the Nature Index rankings. Correspondingly, the US maintained a substantial lead in life sciences, with its research output more than triple that of China’s.
The growth of Chinese research is in part associated with the return to China of many well-known scientists, a shift that has included switching their academic affiliations to institutions in the country.
Additionally, an article published in August by the peer-reviewed journal Science indicated that Chinese scientists have leapt to the forefront in terms of the number of highly-cited papers published.
“The research level of Chinese universities has been significantly enhanced. Since the pace is fast, there is naturally more research output,” Xiamen University professor Peng Li said.
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