WHOI Named as 'Rising Star' in Research Performance

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, USA) was named one of the top 25 institutions in North America in the Nature Index 2016 Rising Stars, which identifies the countries and institutions that have significantly increased their research studies published in high-quality research journals. The supplement to the journal 'Nature' highlights the top 100 institutions from all over the world whose published research grew particularly fast between 2012 and 2015. The institutions were ranked by the increase in their contributions to 68 high-quality journals selected by an independent panel of scientists.

The Nature Index 2016 Rising Stars also features the top 25 ‘regional stars’ from nine geographic areas: Africa, Asia Pacific, Central and South America, South East Europe, East Asia, Middle East and West Asia, North America, South and South East Asia, and Western Europe. WHOI ranked number 18 in the top 25 institutions in North America and is the only ocean science research institution on the list. In the 2015 Nature Index, which  also ranked institutions by scientific fields, WHOI ranked tenth on the list of top 50 earth and environmental sciences institutions in the world.

Chinese Institutions on the Rise

The rankings are based on data from the Nature Index, which follows the research of more than 8,000 global institutions and 150 countries. First launched in November 2014, the index tracks the author affiliations of research articles published in 68 natural science journals.

The Nature Index 2016 Rising Stars shows that Chinese institutions are leading the world in rapidly increasing high-quality research outputs. Forty of the top 100 most improved institutions across the globe are from China, with the top spot going to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The United States, which remains the largest contributor to high-quality scientific papers overall, is second, with 11 institutions in the top 100. Also included are nine institutions from the United Kingdom and eight from Germany.