Abstract:  As a new research evaluation index launched in 2014, nature index (NI) reflects the high-level paper output capacity, innovation trend, innovation ability, preponderant disciplines and cooperation potentiality of countries, regions, scientific research institutions or universities by using the two indicators of article count (AC) and fractional count (FC). It provides a new way for us to evaluate the research ability of colleges and universities. Nature index is updated regularly with a statistical duration of 12 months. It tracked the information of more than 20,000 scientific research institutions around the world and about 60,000 authors of high-quality scientific research papers. It conducted statistical analysis of research papers published by these institutions in 82 top natural science journals such as Nature, Science and Cell in the previous year. The journals are divided into four categories, chemistry, earth and environmental sciences, life sciences and physics. The journals were selected by two independent panels of working scientists around the world. Compared with the essential science indicator (ESI), a database of papers to be monitored for ten years, nature index′s ranking can better reflect the scientific research output of the evaluated institutions in the short term and evaluate the scientific research output of newly-built universities in a more objective and fair way. Taking Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) as an example of the national higher education comprehensive reform experimental school, which was established in 2012, the university aims to build a world-class research university rooted in China. SUSTech has been less than 10 years old, and ESI data still lags behind other established universities. However, according to nature index data, the number of high-level papers of the school has been growing rapidly, with a clear upward trend. In 2018, the university ranked 27th among mainland China and the first place in Shenzhen. The data also show the university′s close cooperation with overseas universities in scientific research. This is because 90% of the university′s teachers have worked overseas. The high-level papers published by the school are mainly based on international cooperation. The dominant disciplines are chemistry and physics, life science and earth and environmental science are relatively weak, and the discipline development level is uneven. This is due to the early establishment of the physics and chemistry departments. Similarly, the natural index evaluation system also has some shortcomings, such as the degree of contribution to scholars is not differentiated, the default contribution of each author is equal; the statistics are the total number of papers and fractional measurement, not measured by individual average output. With the popularization and application of natural index, the journals selected as the statistical sources of the natural index are likely to be given a higher weight by the scientific research management department in the evaluation of scientific research, and will also become a standard for scientific researchers to select the top journals when submitting their papers. The natural index evaluates the scientific research output of colleges and universities with a new perspective, which provides a reference for future scientific research management.

Key words:  nature index, scientific research capability, Southern University of Science and Technology；evaluation