Salk Institute ranks in top 5 in the world for high-quality scientific research

June 7, 2018

Salk Institute ranks in top 5 nonprofits in the world for high-quality scientific research in life sciences

Wide-ranging index from Nature Research tracks top research institutions globally

June 7, 2018

LA JOLLA—The Salk Institute has been ranked one of the top 5 nonprofit institutions in the world focused on the life sciences and one of the top 10 nonprofits generally, according to a report known as the Nature Index and released by Springer Nature on June 7, 2018. The rankings are based on Nature Index data from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017.

“Salk has been a consistent source of groundbreaking discoveries in the fundamental biological sciences since its founding by polio vaccine discoverer Jonas Salk more than 50 years ago,” says President Rusty Gage. “Our world-class scientists continue to push scientific boundaries with their research into cancer, neuroscience, genetics, metabolism and plant biology, which is reflected in these exemplary rankings.”

David Swinbanks, founder of the Nature Index, says, “The Salk Institute has long been recognized as a thriving center of excellence in life science research that excels, and the results from the Nature Index annual tables reaffirms its top standing in the world.”

Nature Index ranked Salk second in the world for high-quality, high-impact scientific collaborations in the life sciences in a supplemental report called Nature Index 2016 Collaborations that published in November 2016.

The Nature Index tracks by country and institution the research published in 82 high-quality science journals each year, counting both the total number of papers and the share of authorship of each paper. It uses two metrics of article output:

• Article count (AC): A country or institution is given an AC of 1 for each article that has at least one author from that country or institution.
• Fractional count (FC): FC takes into account the relative contribution of each author to an article.

The Nature Index is compiled by Nature Research, which is part of Springer Nature, and is among Nature Research’s wider efforts to provide the research community with relevant information about the state of global science and publishing trends. The Nature Index database was launched in November 2014 and provides a close-to-real-time proxy for high-quality research output at the institutional, national and regional levels.