SINGAPORE - Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has made a steady rise in a global ranking of scientific research by a prestigious publishing company.

It climbed three places to reach the 37th spot this year in the report compiled by the Nature Publishing Group, which was published on Wednesday. More than 8,500 institutions were ranked.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) slipped four places to 46th while the Agency for Science, Technology and Research came in at the 162nd spot, down from 107th last year.

The Nature Index, now in its third year, looks at the science output of 20,000 research institutions around the world, tracking the author affiliations of 60,000 high-quality scientific articles published each year.

The ranking is based on papers published in 68 science journals from January to December last year.

As in previous years, the top institution on the index was the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Harvard University and the French National Centre for Scientific Research were second and third respectively.

NTU maintained its eighth placing among Asian institutions, also making it the highest-ranked Singapore institution on the index. NUS was ranked 13th in Asia.

NTU scored the best in chemistry research, coming in eighth worldwide, ahead of other top universities such as Stanford and Oxford.