Bilkent University holds the position of Turkey’s top-ranking institution in the prestigious Nature Index as of 2015. The index provides a way to rate institutions and countries according to the number and quality of research publications produced by their scientists.
A database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 68 high-quality science journals, Nature Index is compiled by Nature Publishing Group (whose publications include the leading scientific journal Nature) in collaboration with Digital Science.
In the rankings, Bilkent led in the “fractional count” (FC) and “weighted fractional count” (WFC) measures, which take into account the proportion of authors from a given institution or country who have contributed to an article. On this basis, Middle East Technical University placed second in Turkey, and the İzmir Institute of Technology third. Internationally, Harvard University and Stanford University topped the list.
Looking at research output by country, the United States far outranked all other nations in the Index; however, China, in second place, has surged in the rankings, followed by Germany, Japan and England. Turkey placed 38th.
The Nature Index is updated monthly, and a 12-month rolling window of data is freely accessible at www.natureindex.com, where more information regarding the index and its methodology may also be found.