Structural Biology Research: Who Leads Worldwide

Which countries lead Structural Biology research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, China and Germany rank highest in Structural Biology. By volume, the United States and China publish the most (1.2k and 566 works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

1 United States #1 all time 1.00× excellence · 0.96× journals · 100% breadth 10.6% top 10% · 1k works
2 China #3 all time 1.09× excellence · 1.36× journals · 100% breadth 11.1% top 10% · 428 works
3 Germany #2 all time 1.16× excellence · 1.20× journals · 100% breadth 10.9% top 10% · 386 works
4 United Kingdom #6 all time 1.15× excellence · 0.99× journals · 100% breadth 12.0% top 10% · 205 works
5 Japan #8 all time 0.66× excellence · 0.93× journals · 100% breadth 5.3% top 10% · 238 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 5 countries ranked in Structural Biology. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Structural Biology

By volume, 2022-now

1 United States 1.2k works
2 China 566 works
3 Germany 465 works
4 Japan 287 works
5 United Kingdom 249 works
6 France 193 works
7 South Korea 94 works
8 Netherlands 90 works
9 Switzerland 87 works
10 Russia 86 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States1,217 · 36.5%China566 · 17.0%Germany465 · 14.0%Japan287 · 8.6%6 others listed799 · 24.0%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Structural Biology research?

Chinese Academy of Sciences (China) ranks first in Structural Biology on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

By research quality, 2022-now

1 Chinese Academy of Sciences China · Beijing · #7 all time 10.7% top 10% · 65 works
2 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique France · Paris · #3 all time 7.7% top 10% · 85 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 2 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Structural Biology.

Top 100 Structural Biology institutions

By volume, 2022-now

1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 101 works
2 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 86 works
3 Helmholtz Association of German Research CentresGermany 65 works
4 Max Planck SocietyGermany 62 works
5 Stanford UniversityUnited States 49 works
6 Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryUnited States 37 works
7 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 31 works
8 Cornell UniversityUnited States 29 works
9 University of California, BerkeleyUnited States 28 works
10 Oak Ridge National LaboratoryUnited States 28 works

Who are the leading researchers in Structural Biology?

Counting only their work in Structural Biology, Stefan W. Hell, Wolfgang P. Baumeister and Henry N. Chapman have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

1 Stefan W. Hell Germany · #10,147 worldwide overall 24.2 of 49 papers here in the top 10%
2 Wolfgang P. Baumeister Germany · #24,466 worldwide overall 23.9 of 63 papers here in the top 10%
3 Henry N. Chapman Germany · #90,213 worldwide overall 18.1 of 72 papers here in the top 10%
4 Nikolaus Grigorieff United States · #8,963 worldwide overall 12.5 of 24 papers here in the top 10%
5 Joachim W. Frank United States · #58,964 worldwide overall 16.3 of 62 papers here in the top 10%
6 Sjors H. W. Scheres United Kingdom · #1,406 worldwide overall 11.7 of 17 papers here in the top 10%
7 Jianwei Miao United States · #72,493 worldwide overall 13.8 of 40 papers here in the top 10%
8 Anton Barty Germany · #31,535 worldwide overall 13.1 of 34 papers here in the top 10%
9 Stefan Jakobs Germany · #36,477 worldwide overall 11.2 of 19 papers here in the top 10%
10 Garth J. Williams United States · #34,900 worldwide overall 12.0 of 31 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Structural Biology alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 109,204 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 Structural Biology researchers

What are the most cited papers in Structural Biology?

The most cited paper in Structural Biology is "LAMMPS - a flexible simulation tool for particle-based materials modeling at the atomic, meso, and continuum scales" (Aidan P. Thompson, Hasan Metin Aktulga, Richard A. Berger et al., 2021), with 12,569 citations. Next come "cryoSPARC: algorithms for rapid unsupervised cryo-EM structure determination" (11,217) and "Jalview Version 2—a multiple sequence alignment editor and analysis workbench" (11,179).

Most cited papers
#	Paper	Released	Citations
1	LAMMPS - a flexible simulation tool for particle-based materials modeling at the atomic, meso, and continuum scales Aidan P. Thompson, Hasan Metin Aktulga, Richard A. Berger et al. · Computer Physics Communications Open access	22 Sep 2021	12,569
2	cryoSPARC: algorithms for rapid unsupervised cryo-EM structure determination Ali Punjani, John L. Rubinstein, David J. Fleet et al. · Nature Methods	6 Feb 2017	11,217
3	Jalview Version 2—a multiple sequence alignment editor and analysis workbench Andrew Mark Waterhouse, James B Procter, David M. A. Martin et al. · Bioinformatics Open access	16 Jan 2009	11,179
4	UCSF ChimeraX : Structure visualization for researchers, educators, and developers Eric F. Pettersen, Thomas D. Goddard, Conrad C. Huang et al. · Protein Science Open access	3 Sep 2020	10,674
5	MotionCor2: anisotropic correction of beam-induced motion for improved cryo-electron microscopy Shawn Q. Zheng, Eugene J. Palovcak, Jean‐Paul Armache et al. · Nature Methods Open access	27 Feb 2017	9,180

All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Structural Biology research done?

The largest centres of Structural Biology research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Tokyo (Japan), Paris (France) and Berkeley (United States). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Didcot, Upton and Menlo Park.

Largest cities, 2022-now

1 BeijingChina 174 works
2 TokyoJapan 84 works
3 ParisFrance 69 works
4 BerkeleyUnited States 65 works
5 ShanghaiChina 57 works
6 LondonUnited Kingdom 51 works
7 HamburgGermany 50 works
8 New YorkUnited States 48 works
9 MoscowRussia 44 works
10 BerlinGermany 38 works

Where it is the local speciality

DidcotGB · 22.3 works68×
UptonUS · 22.8 works59×
Menlo ParkUS · 26.2 works43×
LemontUS · 28.1 works38×
JülichDE · 22.8 works23×

← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Structural Biology than the world average.

See Structural Biology on the map

Structural Biology research by country

The best places for Structural Biology research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

China

Where is the best place to study Structural Biology?

Among universities, judged by research, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and University of Oxford score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now

50%

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged

20%

Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share

5%

Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale

15%

Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%

5%

Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad

5%

Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.

#	University	Score	Rank in field (all time)	Top 10%	Specialisation	Works	Growth
1	Stanford UniversityUnited States	87.1	- (#2)	12.7%	9.4×	49	-14.5%
2	University of California, BerkeleyUnited States	54.9	- (#8)	13.2%	8.4×	28	+7.7%
3	University of OxfordUnited Kingdom	47.6	- (#9)	11.4%	4.8×	24	-2.8%
4	Cornell UniversityUnited States	43.8	- (#12)	13.8%	6.1×	28	+11.7%
5	Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUnited States	40.7	-	20.9%	9.3×	23	+21.8%
6	University of CambridgeUnited Kingdom	35.7	- (#11)	10.8%	3.5×	15	-31.0%
7	Peking UniversityChina	35.4	-	20.2%	3.7×	27	+81.8%
8	Yale UniversityUnited States	31.1	-	18.1%	3.8×	15	+29.5%
9	École Polytechnique Fédérale de LausanneSwitzerland	30.5	-	14.7%	12.1×	18	-16.6%
10	Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences	30.3	-	20.0%	133.7×	8	-
11	Arizona State UniversityUnited States	29.8	- (#13)	7.4%	8.3×	19	-32.4%
12	Universität HamburgGermany	29.5	-	12.6%	6.8×	18	+40.4%
13	Tsinghua UniversityChina	29.1	-	13.3%	3.3×	27	+101.4%
14	Rosalind Franklin InstituteUnited Kingdom	28.6	-	16.2%	532.7×	9	-
15	The University of TokyoJapan	28.4	- (#16)	12.3%	5.1×	23	-12.7%
16	University of GöttingenGermany	28.4	-	17.1%	13.1×	17	-48.5%
17	University of AntwerpBelgium	28.2	-	7.2%	12.5×	15	+20.0%
18	University of California, Los AngelesUnited States	27.5	-	8.0%	5.7×	23	+1.2%
19	University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina	27.4	-	13.1%	3.6×	21	+26.0%
20	University of TorontoCanada	27.1	-	15.4%	1.6×	12	+27.2%
21	Southern University of Science and TechnologyChina	27.0	-	18.6%	4.5×	8	+112.4%
22	Technion – Israel Institute of TechnologyIsrael	26.9	-	7.7%	12.2×	16	+48.3%
23	ETH ZurichSwitzerland	26.6	-	10.3%	5.1×	13	+4.3%
24	Northwestern UniversityUnited States	26.3	-	11.5%	6.0×	18	+23.3%
25	Purdue University West LafayetteUnited States	26.3	-	13.4%	5.2×	18	+14.6%
26	Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-NürnbergGermany	25.6	-	11.6%	7.5×	15	+16.7%
27	Harvard UniversityUnited States	24.8	-	13.8%	1.3×	14	-10.6%
28	Utrecht UniversityNetherlands	24.7	-	10.0%	4.2×	11	+1.3%
29	RWTH Aachen UniversityGermany	24.6	-	4.8%	7.8×	22	+31.6%
30	California Institute of TechnologyUnited States	24.1	-	10.1%	8.7×	11	-17.3%
31	Heidelberg UniversityGermany	24.0	-	18.1%	3.0×	8	-18.1%
32	University of California San DiegoUnited States	23.9	-	13.3%	3.1×	11	+4.9%
33	University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignUnited States	23.8	-	12.1%	5.3×	16	-14.4%
34	University of MichiganUnited States	23.8	-	13.3%	2.6×	14	+11.0%
35	University College LondonUnited Kingdom	23.6	-	13.1%	2.4×	14	-18.8%
36	University of Wisconsin–MadisonUnited States	23.4	-	5.7%	5.4×	18	+30.5%
37	Delft University of TechnologyNetherlands	23.3	-	9.9%	7.4×	18	-17.0%
38	Technical University of DenmarkDenmark	23.3	-	6.3%	7.8×	14	+75.2%
39	University of Tennessee at KnoxvilleUnited States	22.7	-	13.5%	6.5×	9	+111.9%
40	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and TechnologySouth Korea	22.4	-	16.3%	4.9×	8	+16.4%
41	KTH Royal Institute of TechnologySweden	22.2	-	11.7%	6.1×	8	+7.7%
42	Pohang University of Science and TechnologySouth Korea	22.1	-	9.5%	15.1×	12	+16.1%
43	National University of SingaporeSingapore	21.6	-	7.5%	2.5×	11	+29.5%
44	Nagoya UniversityJapan	20.8	- (#19)	1.7%	11.1×	20	+73.0%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in Structural Biology, country by country

Is Structural Biology research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 6% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications.

grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Structural Biology as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.015% in 2024.

Fractional works of Structural Biology over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

What does Structural Biology include?

Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications

Share who leads Structural Biology

The leading institutions' badges2Each links to that institution's page and updates with every snapshot

Which countries lead Structural Biology research?

By research quality, 2022-now

By volume, 2022-now

How concentrated that is

Which institutions lead Structural Biology research?

By research quality, 2022-now

By volume, 2022-now

Who are the leading researchers in Structural Biology?

What are the most cited papers in Structural Biology?

Where is Structural Biology research done?

Largest cities, 2022-now

Where it is the local speciality

Structural Biology research by country

Where is the best place to study Structural Biology?

Is Structural Biology research growing?

Its share of all research

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Which topics inside it are moving

What does Structural Biology include?

Share who leads Structural Biology

Related research

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