NJU ranked high among 200 world leading research institutes and universities, according to the Nature Index (NI) released by Nature Publishing Group on Jun.18th of 2015. NJU published 474 papers in 68 NI journals in 2014, with an NI value of 202.3, which put NJU 37th among 200 world leading research institutes and universities, and 3 rd among Chinese universities. NJU’s Chemistry ranked 16th worldwide and 4th nationwide, with Physical Sciences ranked 42th worldwide and 5th nationwide, and Earth & Environmental Sciences ranked 7th in Asia-Pacific area and 3rd nationwide. 

NI database is said to have traced the authors and their affiliations from about 60,000 quality research papers, covering over 20,000 world leading research institutes and universities. The NI papers are selected from 68 journals of natural science, regarded by researchers as publishers of best research achievement in natural science, which takes up 30% of total citation in natural science journals.