A guide to the Nature Index

"The Nature Index is a database of author affiliations and institutional relationships. The index tracks contributions to research articles published in high-quality natural-science and health-science journals, chosen based on reputation by an independent group of researchers. The Nature Index provides absolute and fractional counts of article publication at the institutional and national level and, as such, is an indicator of global high-quality research output and collaboration."

"The Nature Index uses Count and Share to track research output. A country/territory or an institution is given a Count of 1 for each article that has at least one author from that country/territory or institution. This is the case regardless of the number of authors an article has, and it means that the same article can contribute to the Count of multiple countries/territories or institutions."

"To glean a country's, territory's, region's or an institution's contribution to an article, and to ensure that they are not counted more than once, the Nature Index uses Share, a fractional count that takes into account the share of authorship on each article. The total Share available per article is 1, which is shared among all authors under the assumption that each contributed equally."

The Nature Index is a database of author affiliations and institutional relationships tracking contributions to research articles in high-quality natural- and health-science journals selected for reputation by an independent group. The Index provides absolute (Count) and fractional (Share) counts of article publication at institutional and national levels and serves as an indicator of global high-quality research output and collaboration. Data are updated regularly and the most recent 12 months are available under a Creative Commons licence at natureindex.com. Count assigns 1 to each country or institution listed on an article regardless of author number. Share apportions a total of 1 per article equally among authors, splits an author's Share across multiple affiliations, and sums shares to compute institutional and national contributions.

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