A guide to the index

The Nature Index23 North South Collaboration Supplement: Is South Africa a “global North” Country in a Developing World’s Best Science?

The Nature Index is a database of author affiliations and institutional relationships. The index tracks contributions to research articles published in high-quality natural-science and health-science journals, chosen based on reputation by an independent group of researchers.

Adjusted Share accounts for the small annual variation in the total number of articles in the Nature Index journals. The percentage difference in the number of articles in the index in a given year relative to the number in a base year and Share values are used to arrive at the figure.

There is a score called the bilateral collaboration score between two institutions A+B which is the sum of their shares on the papers they have contributed to. A bilateral collaboration can be between any two institutions or countries/territories co-authoring at least one article in the journals tracked by the Nature Index.

Each query will return a profile page that lists the country or institution’s recent outputs, from which it is possible to drill down for more information. Articles can be displayed by journal, and then by article. Research outputs are organized by subject area. The institutions and their relationship with other organizations are listed on the pages. Users can track an institution’s performance over time, create their own indexes and export table data.

The Dimensions database from Digital Science is used as the basis for the Nature index23 North South collaboration supplement. It includes Nature Index articles in 82 selected natural-science journals published between 2015 and 2022, and Dimensions articles from the same period.

There are some things that can happen. The World Bank division was used to split countries because of the lack of definitive boundaries on the global north and global south categories. South Africa is an upper middle-income country, and so is a “global north” country in the data. For most of Latin America, the same is true. Data from health-sciences journals, recently added to the Nature Index, were not available for analysis (the supplement features separate data from the Digital Science Dimensions database to broaden subject scope).

International collaboration is an essential force in science. The nature of partnerships can affect how beneficial they are to people, institutions and societies. Nowhere is this more true than in collaborations involving the global north and south.