Michigan State recently ranked 5th among all U.S. universities, as tracked by rise in the Nature Index over three years.

The Nature Index tracks contribution to primary articles in some of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world. It is compiled by Nature Research and provides a close to real-time proxy for high-quality research output and collaboration at the institutional, regional and national level.

MSU's had absolute share growth of 21.8 from 2015 to 2018 in the number of articles published in the natural sciences, which specifically include earth and environmental science, life sciences and the physical sciences.

“Our faculty and students continue to conduct ground-breaking research worthy of publication in the world’s top journals,” said Stephen Hsu, senior vice president for Research and Innovation. “This recognition reflects the hard work and tremendous increase in scholarly productivity by our researchers.”

The other top four schools are Princeton, Northwestern, University of California-Irvine and Washington University-St. Louis. Among these schools, MSU had the highest percentage increase at 32%.

“Share” represents the number of articles in the natural sciences published by each university’s faculty, with proportional credit given for coauthored publications.

More on the index:

The Nature Index is a global database of journal articles published in an independently selected group of 82 high-quality science journals, as selected by an international panel of active scientists. The distinction of these journals is evidenced by the fact that they represent less than 4-5% of all journals covering the natural sciences, but account for close to 30% of total citations to natural science journals.