Brandeis places 5th in Nature's global rankings

In its annual index, the journal said the university's scientists publish in prestigious publications at a far higher rate than those at other schools.

Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific journals, has ranked Brandeis 5th globally in its annual survey of institutions with the highest output of top-quality research in the natural sciences.

The journal described the top-tier institutions in the Nature Index Annual Table as "punching above their weight in producing high-quality research."

The rankings were calculated based on the share of articles published in 2018 by an institution's researchers in 82 prestigious scientific journals as a proportion of their overall output. This method, used for the first time this year, gives more recognition to schools with fewer faculty, but with a higher percentage publishing in premier journals.

Among the other institutions in the top five were the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, The Rockefeller University in New York and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

“I have always said we punch above our weight,” said Professor of Astrophysics John Wardle, who is head of the division of science. “Our science faculty is first-rate. They are creative and intensely collaborative both inside and outside Brandeis.”

In recent years, Brandeis faculty have won some of science’s top awards. Michael Rosbash, the Peter Gruber Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and professor of biology, and Jeffrey C. Hall, professor emeritus of biology, were awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

In 2016, Eve Marder '69, the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience at Brandeis, received the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, Norway's equivalent of the Nobel.

As part of its index, Nature listed 2018 research papers with the highest Altmetric scores, which reflect overall influence and popularity among academics, the media and the lay public.

The top papers which Brandeis faculty wrote or collaborated on were:

• "Living Science: The voice of evidence" in eLife. University Professor and Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience Eve Marder.
  
  
• “High-accuracy determination of internal circadian time from a single blood sample” in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Associate professor of biology Sebastian Kadener.

• “Multiplexed precision genome editing with trackable genomic barcodes in yeast” in Nature Biotechnology. Abraham and Etta Goodman Professor of Biology and director of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center James Haber.

• “Measurement of the W-boson mass in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector” in The European Physical Journal C. Professors of physics James R. Bensinger and Craig A. Blocker.

• "Search for heavy resonances decaying into WW in the e final state in pp collisions at √s=13TeV with the ATLAS detector." The European Physical Journal C. Professors of physics James R. Bensinger and Craig A. Blocker.