Unveiling the world’s leading research hospitals — with Nature Index

The hospitals of the ninth century looked very different from the modern facilities we know today, yet some principles remain surprisingly familiar. Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, a pioneering physician in medieval Baghdad, introduced ideas like control groups, advising colleagues to test new treatments on only half a patient group. When asked where to build a new bimaristan (Islamic hospital), he suggested hanging meat around the city and choosing the spot where it took longest to rot. Al-Rāzī also authored more than 200 works across medicine and philosophy, a publishing record that would be the envy of many modern scholars. Hospitals have been important centres of research, as well as health care, ever since.

In this year’s Nature Index: Research Hospitals special feature, we reveal the healthcare institutions that are publishing the most in Nature Index journals and look at how hospitals outside Europe and North America are increasingly contributing to high-quality research.

We dig into the sometimes-controversial world of China’s research hospitals: aiming to understand how medical research is thriving (to the point where it is challenging the United States in biomedicine), but also how warped incentives and questionable publishing practices are undermining trust in some of the research.

We also examine some longitudinal studies from around the globe that broaden medical understanding beyond Western populations — an approach that might even have seemed narrow to al-Rāzī.

The Research Hospitals feature additionally includes “branded content” articles, created for partner organizations by our Nature Custom Media team. The articles bring to life the organizations’ pioneering advances in medicine — from a dissolving stent that could transform bowel surgery, to data-driven strategies reshaping cancer care, visionary approaches to eye health, and metabolism as the next biomedical frontier.

Nature Index features planned for 2026 will cover research topics such as chemical sciences, China, cancer, nanotechnology, and regenerative medicine.

Discover how your organization can feature in upcoming Nature Index special features.