CSIR, CSIR-IICB top Nature Index report

India's premier research and development organization, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) ranks first among the country's institutes and universities in terms of journal publications in the life sciences field, according to the Nature Index report, a statement said Tuesday.

In addition, the Kolkata-based CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB) bagged the first position among all the CSIR laboratories with regard to research output in the life sciences discipline, according to a statement issued by the institute.

"Happy to inform you, CSIR ranks second among all Indian institutes/universities in all subject journal publication sorted by Article Count (AC) and first in life sciences journal publications," said a CSIR-IICB release.

The Nature Index is an database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 68 high-quality science journals. The database is compiled by Nature Publishing Group (NPG) in collaboration with Digital Science.

AC is one of the ways to measure research outputs in the Nature Index.

The AC score for CSIR was 37 in the life sciences area while for IICB it was 11.

CSIR has an AC score of 204 involving research activities in chemistry, earth and environmental sciences, life sciences and physical sciences.

In the all subjects category, the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) took the first spot with an AC score of 238.

The findings are based on research outputs spanning Sep 1, 2013 to Aug 31, 2014.

"At the same time, it is my pleasure to inform you that CSIR-IICB ranks third amongst all Indian institutes/universities in Life Science category journal publications as sorted by Article Count (AC) and first among CSIR laboratories," the statement said.

It also said CSIR-IICB clinched the third spot in journal publications related to all subjects (scientific disciplines) among the CSIR labs.

The Nature Index tracks the affiliations of high-quality scientific articles. Updated monthly, it presents recent research outputs by institution and country.

It shows a 12 month rolling window of data on its website and tracks 20,000+ institutions and 7,000+ parent institutions across the world.