Auckland University leads steady New Zealand science

Nature, NPI 2011 Asia-Pacific

PRESS RELEASE FROM NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

22 MARCH 2012

The University of Auckland tops the 2011 research rankings in New Zealand with an output more than twice that recorded in 2010, according to the Nature Publishing Index 2011 Asia-Pacific, released today. In second place is the steadily rising Victoria University of Wellington and third the University of Otago, which topped last year’s list.

New Zealand overall ranked eighth in the Asia-Pacific 2011 Index, having been overtaken in terms of publishing output by the larger Taiwan and India, but retains sixth spot on the three-year average (2009-2011). New Zealand’s scientists contributed to 28 papers in Nature research journals in 2011, one more than in 2010, but corrected for the proportion of co-author contribution their productivity dropped slightly in 2011. In a growing Asia-Pacific region, this steady state accounted for New Zealand’s drop in ranking.

Averaged over three years, the three top New Zealand universities, the earth science research institute GNS Science, and Massey University all rank among the top 100 institutions of the Asia-Pacific according to the index.

The Nature Publishing Index 2011 Asia-Pacific measures the output of research articles from nations and institutions in terms of publications in the prestigious Nature research journals in 2011. The Index, which provides a unique insight into the quality and impact of New Zealand and Asia-Pacific science, is published as a supplement to Nature today.

The Nature Publishing Index 2011 Asia-Pacific measures the output of research articles from nations and institutions in terms of publications in the prestigious Nature research journals in 2011. The Index, which provides a unique insight into the quality and impact of Singaporean and Asia-Pacific science, is published as a supplement to Nature today.

The supplement provides a snapshot of research in the Asia-Pacific in 2011. To see the latest results for the region, visit the Index website at www.natureasia.com/en/publishing-index/. The data posted on the website is updated every week with a moving window of 12 months of data.

-ENDS-

New Zealand contact:

Niall Byrne
Science in Public, Australia
T: +61 417 131 977
niall@scienceinpublic.com.au

Nature Publishing Group press contacts:

Contact: Grace Baynes
Corporate Public Relations, Nature Publishing Group
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g.baynes@nature.com

Contact: Ruth Francis
Head of Press, Nature Publishing Group
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r.francis@nature.com

Notes on the Nature Publishing Index:

The Index results should be used with some caveats. The Index only covers Nature and the 17 Nature research journals, so while it offers broad coverage of basic research in the life sciences, physical and chemical sciences, coverage of applied sciences, engineering and clinical medicine is relatively limited, and so the index should be used primarily as an indicator of strength in high quality basic research. It does not incorporate publication in other high quality journals. The Index also only considers one factor — publication output in one family of journals. It does not weight multiple factors in the way that other rankings do, such as the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities or the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The output of an institution or country obviously depends on its size. Finally, some institutions have very large numbers of researchers that help drive up their rankings. So it is important to take into account the numbers of researchers in an institution or country when interpreting the results.

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