research paper on queen elizabeth 2

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• 14 September 2022
• Correction 16 September 2022

Millions are mourning the Queen — what’s the science behind public grief?

• Katharine Sanderson 0

Katharine Sanderson is a freelance writer based in Cornwall, UK.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

The death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96 has prompted an outpouring of emotion — in the United Kingdom and around the globe. Her close family and confidants are grieving for the loss of someone they knew and loved, but what is everyone else feeling? Can feelings of loss for someone you’ve never met even be considered grief?

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

185,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 609 , 666 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02945-9

Updates & Corrections

Correction 16 September 2022 : Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story omitted Mary-Frances O’Connor's full name.

Radford, S. K. & Bloch, P. H. J. Consum. Cult. 12 , 137–155 (2012).

Article   Google Scholar  

Shear, M. K. N. Engl. J. Med. 372 , 153–160 (2015).

Download references

Reprints and permissions

Related Articles

The Queen's English dethroned

Innate immunity in neurons makes memories persist

News & Views 27 MAR 24

Memories are made by breaking DNA — and fixing it

News 27 MAR 24

Ketamine is in the spotlight thanks to Elon Musk — but is it the right treatment for depression?

News Explainer 20 MAR 24

Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research

Perspective 06 MAR 24

Why reciprocity is common in humans but rare in other animals

News & Views 21 FEB 24

Making cities mental health friendly for adolescents and young adults

Analysis 21 FEB 24

Overcoming low vision to prove my abilities under pressure

Career Q&A 28 MAR 24

Sam Bankman-Fried sentencing: crypto-funded researchers grapple with FTX collapse

News 28 MAR 24

The ‘Anthropocene’ is here to stay — and it’s better not as a geological epoch

Correspondence 26 MAR 24

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Ecological and Evolutionary Modeling

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Ecosystem Ecology linked to IceLab’s Center for modeling adaptive mechanisms in living systems under stress

Umeå, Sweden

Umeå University

Faculty Positions in Westlake University

Founded in 2018, Westlake University is a new type of non-profit research-oriented university in Hangzhou, China, supported by public a...

Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

Westlake University

Postdoctoral Fellowships-Metabolic control of cell growth and senescence

Postdoctoral positions in the team Cell growth control by nutrients at Inst. Necker, Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Paris, France.

Paris, Ile-de-France (FR)

Inserm DR IDF Paris Centre Nord

Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine on Open Recruitment of Medical Talents and Postdocs

Director of Clinical Department, Professor, Researcher, Post-doctor

The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University

Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Warmly Welcomes Talents Abroad

“Qiushi” Distinguished Scholar, Zhejiang University, including Professor and Physician

No. 3, Qingchun East Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang (CN)

Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital Affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Site Navigation

Queen elizabeth ii.

O nly 25 years old when King George VI died, Queen Elizabeth began her reign in 1952. She ruled longer than any other British Monarch. Smithsonian collections reflect her influence on global history and culture, from portraits to numismatics (the study of coins, paper currency, and medals).

As part of her July 1976 visit to the U.S. to commemorate the Bicentennial of the American Revolution, she toured the Smithsonian with Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, viewing the Castle and the National Museum of Natural History's Hope Diamond and receiving the Smithson Medal.

In this brief commemoration in honour of Her Majesty, we wanted to reflect on the changes in research and, in particular, in scientific research that have characterised the modern Elizabethan era. The Queen was crowned in the same year that Watson and Crick (with the significant help of Franklin) published their paper on the double helix structure of DNA in 1953. Over the intervening 70 years, the UK has not only remained at the forefront of research, but has made contributions that have been key to shaping the emerging exponential industrial revolution. From Sir Tim Berner-Lee’s pioneering work around the World Wide Web in the late 1980s, to the London-based DeepMind team who solved the protein-folding problem with AlphaFold, the UK has been the home to some of the greatest scientific advances of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

Like her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth married a man who had great interest in, and who consequently was a great supporter of, science and technology. The Victorian era is one that is remembered not only for empire but also for innovation and its technological contribution to the world, and we suggest that the second Elizabethan era will be viewed similarly in this respect. In 1952, the UK produced around 2% of the world’s research output and the broader Commonwealth of Nations, with which the Queen is so intimately related, around 3%. As of 2021, the UK produces around 4% global research and, together with other Commonwealth countries, around 14%.

The influence of the Commonwealth on the world stage often goes unseen but network effects are powerful in today’s world.  Figure 1 shows relative global influence on research of each country or set of countries using a technique that we’ve developed at Digital Science over the last few years based on the eigenvector centrality network measure . The core of the idea is that research volume and research citations only show a superficial picture of research strength. Research is becoming an increasingly collaborative pursuit and success is born of finding the right people with which to work. Eigenvector centrality calculated in the way shown here mixes volume, citation and level of collaboration into one metric that, we argue, is an interesting proxy for influence. In the figure you can see that since 1952 the global influence of the US was strong in the 1950s and 1960s, but decreased in the 1970s and 1980s, stepping down once again in the 1990s and has gradually waned since the turn of the millennium.  On the other hand, China, which had little global research influence at all until the 1980s has grown significantly in the last three decades, overtaking the UK in the last few years.  

However, what is striking about Figure 1 is that the Commonwealth has not only established a solid foundation of global research influence (doubtless due to its large “surface area”, with 56 countries collaborating globally), but that it has also begun growing significantly in its influence in the last 20 years. Of course, when the Queen originally became the Head of the Commonwealth, there were just 8 member states and hence their influence would have been even less than shown in the diagrams here. Our analysis follows the influence of the full current 56 member states throughout the life of the Queen’s reign. While the influence of this group may be unsurprising as it counts highly developed research economies such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand amongst its number, it should also be recognised that it is a disparate collection of countries that includes small and developing economies as well as large ones .

The spread of internet technologies (as mentioned above, an innovation that owes an important part of its lineage to the UK) has enabled smaller nations to play on the international stage of research – a distinct advantage for some Commonwealth-member countries who share a common set of values , language, and a legal system, that all facilitate collaboration. In the age of the internet, distance is no longer a barrier to these countries working together on research projects Hence, while the UK (separate from the Commonwealth) has generally waned in its international research influence, it is notable that it has been less susceptible than others such as the US and the EU to decline in influence.  We suggest that this is likely to be due to its strong ties with Commonwealth nations.

Over the modern Elizabethan era, the world has moved from an age of physical empires through the space race and the computer revolution to an age of information and virtual empires. From a political perspective, the UK relinquished its role as global power and instead needed to content itself with the role of influencer on the world stage. In an elegant parallel, the monarchy moved from being a “ great Imperial family ” to influencers both culturally and politically. The Queen’s personal style transcended the geopolitical zeitgeist as she lent her personal brand to long-term projects such as the Commonwealth.

By all accounts the Queen believed in the Commonwealth as a group of nations who could make positive change and she fought for that. In the case of research, as the US and EU gradually wane in their influence, it may well be that the Commonwealth has the collaborative spirit, as well as the geographical and cultural diversity to continue to influence the world positively. If true, this would be a worthy legacy for someone whose life was one of service.

About Dimensions

Part of Digital Science, Dimensions is a modern, innovative, linked research data infrastructure and tool, re-imagining discovery and access to research: grants, publications, citations, clinical trials, patents and policy documents in one place. www.dimensions.ai  

About the Authors

Daniel Hook , CEO | Digital Science

Daniel Hook is CEO of Digital Science, co-founder of Symplectic , a research information management provider, and of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI). A theoretical physicist by training, he continues to do research in his spare time, with visiting positions at Imperial College London and Washington University in St Louis.

Simon Porter , Director Innovation | Digital Science

Simon Porter has forged a career transforming university practices in how data about research is used, both from administrative and eResearch perspectives. As well as making key contributions to research information visualization, he is well known for his advocacy of Research Profiling Systems and their capability to create new opportunities for researchers.

Related articles

Articles on Death of Queen Elizabeth II

Displaying 1 - 20 of 42 articles.

Putting King Charles III on British currency bucks a global trend to honor diverse national heroes on coins and bills

Harcourt Fuller , Georgia State University

Karl, Karel or Karol? The translation confusion over King Charles III’s name, explained

Neil Bermel , University of Sheffield

Losing a loved one can change you forever, but grief doesn’t have to be the end of your relationship with them

Chao Fang , University of Bath and Sam Carr , University of Bath

To foster real change universities need to stand beside Black professors, not condemn them

Sarah R. Olutola , Lakehead University

The queen’s death certificate says she died of ‘old age’. But what does that really mean?

Marc Trabsky , La Trobe University

Labor seizes big lead in two New South Wales polls six months before election

Adrian Beaumont , The Conversation

How the Queen’s queue can be seen as a modern form of pilgrimage

Anne Bailey , University of Oxford

Will Canada cut ties to the monarchy under King Charles? It’s possible

Jeffrey B. Meyers , Kwantlen Polytechnic University

What makes a national atmosphere? An expert explains the mood surrounding the Queen’s death

Angharad Closs Stephens , Swansea University

‘An obsession with order, hierarchy, and one’s place within it’: what The Queue says about Englishness

Cynthia Sear , The University of Melbourne and Andrew Dawson , The University of Melbourne

Queen Elizabeth II: the politics of national mourning left no space for dissenting voices

Deborah Madden , University of Brighton

Westminster Abbey has witnessed nearly a millennium of British history – but many rituals, like those at royal funerals, aren’t so old

Paul Hammer , University of Colorado Boulder

Federal Labor’s lead in Resolve poll drops from ‘honeymoon’ heights; Labor winning easily in Victoria

Queen Elizabeth II: capturing the world’s most photographed woman in life and death

James Clifford Kent , Royal Holloway University of London

Silence of the poets – has an ancient tradition of commemorative verse died with the Queen?

Sarah C. E. Ross , Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Queen Elizabeth: what we mean when we say we are mourning her for the values she embodied

Kate Woodthorpe , University of Bath

William and Harry reunite to mourn the Queen — here’s why the death of a family member can bring siblings together

Katherine Davies , University of Sheffield

What do Britain’s tears for Queen Elizabeth mean?

Stephen Coleman , University of Leeds

Elizabeth II took the throne at age 25 — one of the many young queens who shaped Britain’s history

Elena Woodacre , University of Winchester

Queen Elizabeth II: the history of royal funerals and how this one will be different

Philip Williamson , Durham University

Related Topics

• Bereavement
• British monarchy
• King Charles III
• Queen Elizabeth II
• UK politics

Top contributors

Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Public Procurement, Bangor University

Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Social Research, and Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde

Associate Professor, University of New England

Associate professor, La Trobe University

Professor of Political Communication, University of Leeds

Principal Lecturer, Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton

Professor of Politics, Massey University

Professor of UK Human Rights Law, University of East Anglia

Reader in Education with Psychology and Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath

Professor in International History, Flinders University

Professor in Linguistics and Scottish Language, University of Aberdeen

Associate Professor of History, Georgia State University

Lecturer in Law, Royal Holloway University of London

Associate Professor of Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

• X (Twitter)
• Unfollow topic Follow topic