Nature Publishing Group updated the latest nature index and it is based on the relative data from Oct 1, 2016 to Sept 30, 2017.
USTC has published a total of 682 papers in 68 natural science journals with a natural index of 236.29 during the period of time， ranking 18th among universities in the world with 1 place up compared to last year and No. 4 in China .
Table 1. Top 20 institutions in the world (2016.10.1-2017.9.30)
In the field of the Physics, our university ranks 11th in the world, 2 places up from last year and 3rd in China. As for the Chemistry, she ranks 8th in the world and No. 4 among mainland universities in China. For the Earth Science and Environment, USTC ranks 44th in the world, rising 5 places up from last year and 3rd in China.
Table 2． Top 20 mainland universities according to the Natural Index of Physics
Table 3． Top 20 mainland universities according to the Natural Index of Chemistry
The natural index weighs much in evaluating the output of high-level academic achievements in scientific research institutions . In Nov 2014, Nature Publishing Group, for the first time, released the global "Nature Index" with the new WFP (weighted fractional count) method.
The index is based on the number of research papers published by various research institutes in 68 natural science journals such as Nature Series, Science and Cell in the previous year. Nature Publishing Group tracks the authors of about 60,000 high-quality research papers, covering more than 20,000 research institutes worldwide，to get the university that support their work。
These 68 journals were selected by two independent panels of active scientists worldwide, divided into four categories: Chemistry, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences and Physics. These 68 journals account for only 0.6% of the number of journals in the world, but their quotations account for about 30% of the total quotations of natural science journals. So Papers published in these journals, to a certain extent, represent the highest level of research in the world.Therefore our school does have a good performance in reasearch .
(HUANG DanNing, USTC News Center, edited by HUANG DanNing)