In this list we present the U-Multirank 2018 top performers on the indicator ‘research publications (absolute numbers)’.

The number of publications in academic journals is a measure of the institution's research activity and its capability in producing research publications at the international level. Of course large universities have the potential to produce more publications.

The world’s most productive research university produced more than 60,000 publications in the period 2013 - 2016. The majority of top performers (11) comes from the US, while the list includes one Canadian university, four European (all from the UK), six Asian institutions (four from China, one from Japan and Korea), two Australian and one from Brazil. The 25 top performers in research publications (absolute numbers) are:

• Harvard University (United States)
• University of Toronto (Canada)
• Johns Hopkins University (United States)
• University of Michigan (United States)
• University of São Paulo (Brazil)
• University of Oxford (United Kingdom)
• University College London (United Kingdom)
• Stanford University (United States)
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China)
• University of Washington - Seattle (United States)
• Zhejiang University (China)
• The University of Tokyo (Japan)
• University of California, Los Angeles (United States)
• University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
• Tsinghua University (China)
• Columbia University (United States)
• Peking University (China)
• Duke University (United States)
• University of Pennsylvania (United States)
• Seoul National University (Korea, Republic Of)
• University of Melbourne (Australia)
• University of California, Berkeley (United States)
• Imperial College London (United Kingdom)
• University of California, San Diego (United States)
• University of Sydney (Australia)

The list is sorted by indicator scores in descending order; possible ties are not marked.

Information about the indicator: