Scientific article in the context of "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society"

The following article lists the cities and metropolitan areas with the greatest scientific output, according to the Nature Index. The Nature Index attempts to objectively measure the scientific output of institutions, cities and countries by the amount of scientific articles and papers published in leading journals. Differences in quality are taken into account. Only articles published in 82 selected quality journals are counted. All these journals are in the English language. They were selected by a committee. If authors from several institutions from different cities are involved in a scientific article, it is divided accordingly, assuming that all researchers were equally involved in the article.

In 2019, Beijing was the city in the world with the largest scientific output, accounting for 2.8% of the world's total. New York City was second in the world, with about 2% of the world's total. Overall, China has the most cities in the top 100 list, followed by the United States.

The Nature Index is a database that tracks institutions and countries/territories and their scientific output since its introduction in November 2014. Originally released with 64 natural-science journals, the Nature Index expanded to 82 natural-science journals in 2018, then added 64 health-science journals in 2023. Each year, Nature Index ranks the leading institutions (which can be companies, universities, government agencies, research institutes, or NGOs) and countries by the number of scientific articles and papers published in leading journals. This ranking can also be categorized by individual fields of research such as life sciences, chemistry, physics, or earth sciences, with different institutions leading in each. The Nature Index was conceived by Nature Portfolio. In total, more than 17,000 institutions are listed in the Nature Index.