The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has taken the top spot in the 2013 Nature Publishing Index (NPI) for the Asia-Pacific area, knocking the University of Tokyo off the top of the ranking for the first time, according to the NPI 2013 Asia-Pacific published today as a supplement to Nature.
Nature Publishing Index 2013
The academy topped the Asia-Pacific region in each of NPI’s four subject areas, namely, Chemistry, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences and Physical Sciences, according to the index. Two CAS institutes made the greatest contribution to the NPI output of the academy. The two institutes are the Institute of Physics (17%) and the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences (13%).
CAS ranked 6th in the Global Top 100 last year, up from 14th in 2012 and 23rd in 2011. Due to its leading research role in China, CAS is a mirror of the whole country’s scientific progress. Chinese scientists have more papers published in Nature journals than Japan or any other Asia-Pacific nation.
China is on track to become the dominant scientific power in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also the regional leader in Chemistry. China is “on pace to take over as the top Asia-Pacific contributor to the NPI in the next two or three years,” predicted the supplement editors of Nature.
Founded in 1869, Nature Publishing Group is a publisher of high impact scientific and medical information in print and online. The Nature Publishing Index 2013 Asia-Pacific is published as a supplement to Nature. It measures the output of research articles from nations and institutes published in 18 primary research journals of Nature to provide a snapshot of research in the Asia-Pacific in 2013.
