Recently, Nature Index has released the latest Nature Index 2018 (data collected from October 1^st, 2017 to September 30^th, 2018), in which Huaqiao University takes the 70^th position out of the TOP 200 universities in Chinese mainland and 426^th worldwide, moving up by 4 and 71 places respectively in comparison with the list published in January 2018. Up to now, HQU has been on the Global Top 500 list twice in a row.

Nature Index is calculated and counted by the Nature Publishing Group based on the number of research papers published in the previous year in 82 natural science journals, such as the NPG publications, Science and Cell. The index tracks information of author affiliations of about 60,000 high-quality research papers, covering more than 20,000 scientific research institutions worldwide. The 82 sources are selected by an independent group of researchers around the world, and are divided into four categories: Chemistry, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences.