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Austria vs Germany

On research quality in 2022-now, Germany ranks #3 in the world and Austria #17, of 189 countries. Austria stands higher in 0 of the 26 fields both publish in, Germany in 26.

Research profiles alike: 0.88very similar shapes of research, whatever their size. How it is measured

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Austria

World rank, 2022-now
#17
#16 all time
Works, 2022-now
90k
fractional
Top-10% rate
10.7%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
37%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Classics, Software, History and Philosophy of Science.

Germany

World rank, 2022-now
#3
#3 all time
Works, 2022-now
708k
fractional
Top-10% rate
10.3%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
31%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Theoretical Computer Science, Structural Biology, Classics.

Who leads, measure by measure?

Austria leads on 4 of 9 measures: top-10% rate, open access, international co-authorship and growth. Germany leads on 3 of 9 measures: research quality, output and institutions in the world top 100. The two are level on citation excellence for its fields and citations per work.

Austria 42 level3 Germany
  1. #17Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#3
  2. 1.20×Citation excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected1.22×
  3. 90kOutputfractional works, 2022-now708k
  4. 10.7%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited10.3%
  5. 22.2Citations per workall time, per fractional work21.9
  6. 0World top 100institutions it holds among the world's best 1007
  7. 37%Open accessof its works free to read, all time31%
  8. 29%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time20%
  9. +4%Growthworks in 2022-25 against 2018-21; half a bar is no change-2%

A rank is drawn as its standing: the longer the bar, the nearer the top. Anything else is drawn against the larger of the two, and two values a hair apart are called level. Quality, citation excellence and the top-10% rate are explained in the methodology.

Who leads in each field?

Austria stands higher in 0 of 26 fields, Germany in 26. Germany leads most in Chemical Engineering (#4 against #21). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

Austria 026 Germany
  1. #18Agricultural and Biological Sciences#3
  2. #11Arts and Humanities#2
  3. #17Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology#3
  4. #14Business, Management and Accounting#3
  5. #21Chemical Engineering#4
  6. #22Chemistry#3
  7. #15Computer Science#3
  8. #21Decision Sciences#4
  9. #17Dentistry#3
  10. #19Earth and Planetary Sciences#5
  11. #13Economics, Econometrics and Finance#4
  12. #27Energy#7
  13. #20Engineering#4
  14. #19Environmental Science#3
  15. #17Health Professions#3
  16. #18Immunology and Microbiology#4
  17. #21Materials Science#4
  18. #16Mathematics#4
  19. #17Medicine#4
  20. #18Neuroscience#4
  21. #19Nursing#4
  22. #21Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics#4
  23. #14Physics and Astronomy#3
  24. #17Psychology#4
  25. #13Social Sciences#4
  26. -Veterinary#5

Standing is the percentile of world rank within each field, 2022-now; the printed number is the rank itself. A dash means the field is too small there to rank. How sides are compared.

The numbers behind each field

Click a heading to sort. The side that does better in a pair of columns is shaded: a lower rank, a higher rate, more works.

Field Austria rankGermany rank Austria top 10%Germany top 10% Austria worksGermany works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences #18 #3 12.9% 13.6% 2.4k 18k
Arts and Humanities #11 #2 11.6% 10.2% 4.9k 34k
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology #17 #3 11.0% 10.8% 5.1k 41k
Business, Management and Accounting #14 #3 11.1% 10.4% 3.2k 27k
Chemical Engineering #21 #4 6.5% 7.1% 281 2.8k
Chemistry #22 #3 8.7% 9.8% 1.2k 13k
Computer Science #15 #3 9.7% 9.4% 7.1k 48k
Decision Sciences #21 #4 11.8% 10.6% 924 7.1k
Dentistry #17 #3 15.0% 16.7% 256 2.3k
Earth and Planetary Sciences #19 #5 10.6% 11.9% 1.4k 11k
Economics, Econometrics and Finance #13 #4 12.2% 11.2% 1.8k 13k
Energy #27 #7 9.0% 8.3% 535 4.9k
Engineering #20 #4 7.8% 7.4% 13k 107k
Environmental Science #19 #3 11.6% 11.6% 3.9k 28k
Health Professions #17 #3 9.7% 10.9% 2k 18k
Immunology and Microbiology #18 #4 11.7% 11.0% 888 7.5k
Materials Science #21 #4 7.9% 7.9% 2.3k 20k
Mathematics #16 #4 11.6% 10.9% 1.5k 9.1k
Medicine #17 #4 12.2% 11.3% 17k 137k
Neuroscience #18 #4 10.1% 10.2% 1.7k 17k
Nursing #19 #4 11.7% 11.7% 231 1.7k
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics #21 #4 9.3% 8.8% 205 1.6k
Physics and Astronomy #14 #3 11.7% 11.1% 2.6k 26k
Psychology #17 #4 11.5% 11.5% 3.3k 27k
Social Sciences #13 #4 11.3% 10.5% 12k 85k
Veterinary - #5 - 11.3% - 1.1k

What is each known for?

The keywords that describe each side's research, by fractional works in 2022-now and weighted toward what it does more of than the world.

Austria

▲ more of its work than of the world's◆ about the world's share▼ less than the world's
All 40 words, with their numbers
  1. Epidemiology3,551▼ 0.86×140 topics
  2. Climate Change3,088◆ 1.10×131 topics
  3. Machine Learning2,846▼ 0.83×93 topics
  4. Deep Learning2,629▼ 0.74×82 topics
  5. Sustainability2,573◆ 1.02×139 topics
  6. Inflammation2,161◆ 0.98×83 topics
  7. Globalization1,998◆ 0.98×178 topics
  8. Sustainable Development1,541◆ 0.95×109 topics
  9. Big Data1,464▲ 1.48×36 topics
  10. Renewable Energy1,433◆ 0.96×61 topics
  11. Education1,415▼ 0.80×153 topics
  12. Human Rights1,400▲ 1.33×90 topics
  13. Public Health1,387◆ 0.92×76 topics
  14. Identity1,384▲ 1.85×78 topics
  15. Artificial Intelligence1,380◆ 0.94×65 topics
  16. Quality of Life1,375◆ 0.92×61 topics
  17. Environmental Impact1,319▼ 0.75×71 topics
  18. Oxidative Stress1,319▼ 0.78×63 topics
  19. Gender1,204▲ 2.2×58 topics
  20. Treatment1,159◆ 0.92×52 topics
  21. Mechanical Properties1,144◆ 1.13×39 topics
  22. History1,105▲ 1.54×66 topics
  23. Innovation1,067◆ 1.00×88 topics
  24. Ethics1,063▲ 2.0×60 topics
  25. Governance1,020▲ 3.0×20 topics
  26. Nationalism836▲ 1.80×33 topics
  27. Literature831▲ 1.47×64 topics
  28. Religion802▲ 1.68×43 topics
  29. Philosophy800▲ 1.75×47 topics
  30. Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse749▲ 19×2 topics
  31. Neoliberalism696▲ 1.87×30 topics
  32. European Union620▲ 2.7×29 topics
  33. Bildungsungleichheit529▲ 19×1 topic
  34. Ethnografisches Schreiben529▲ 19×1 topic
  35. Bildung381▲ 12×3 topics
  36. Migration Law341▲ 23×2 topics
  37. Legal Methodology335▲ 18×2 topics
  38. Regulatory Agencies330▲ 15×2 topics
  39. Constitutional Courts328▲ 21×2 topics
  40. Digital Governance317▲ 28×1 topic

Germany

▲ more of its work than of the world's◆ about the world's share▼ less than the world's
All 40 words, with their numbers
  1. Epidemiology27k▼ 0.85×140 topics
  2. Machine Learning22k▼ 0.80×97 topics
  3. Climate Change21k◆ 0.96×131 topics
  4. Deep Learning20k▼ 0.73×85 topics
  5. Sustainability20k◆ 1.02×140 topics
  6. Inflammation15k◆ 0.88×83 topics
  7. Sustainable Development14k◆ 1.14×113 topics
  8. Big Data13k▲ 1.66×37 topics
  9. Globalization13k▼ 0.80×186 topics
  10. Artificial Intelligence12k◆ 1.07×67 topics
  11. Renewable Energy12k◆ 1.04×61 topics
  12. Public Health12k◆ 1.00×77 topics
  13. Identity10k▲ 1.77×80 topics
  14. Governance10k▲ 3.9×20 topics
  15. Digital Transformation9,308▲ 2.1×32 topics
  16. Gender8,935▲ 2.1×58 topics
  17. History8,678▲ 1.55×66 topics
  18. Leadership7,673▲ 1.95×42 topics
  19. Ethics7,501▲ 1.84×62 topics
  20. Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse7,246▲ 23×2 topics
  21. Bildungsungleichheit5,174▲ 23×1 topic
  22. Ethnografisches Schreiben5,174▲ 23×1 topic
  23. Mobile Health5,091▲ 4.3×3 topics
  24. Customer Experience4,931▲ 3.7×4 topics
  25. Fluid Dynamics4,685▲ 4.1×6 topics
  26. Business Models4,055▲ 6.9×4 topics
  27. Organizational Change3,925▲ 6.2×10 topics
  28. Socioeconomic Status3,797▲ 9.1×4 topics
  29. Epidemiological Study3,750▲ 6.8×4 topics
  30. Bildung3,692▲ 15×3 topics
  31. Technology Innovation3,652▲ 13×3 topics
  32. Omni-Channel Strategy3,586▲ 21×1 topic
  33. Data Collection3,486▲ 15×3 topics
  34. Materials Science3,439▲ 11×4 topics
  35. Strategic Marketing3,399▲ 20×2 topics
  36. Digital Capital3,382▲ 24×1 topic
  37. Value Chains3,382▲ 24×1 topic
  38. Germany3,367▲ 22×1 topic
  39. Health Surveys3,367▲ 22×1 topic
  40. Engineering3,346▲ 9.1×7 topics

Size is fractional works in the topics tagged with each word; colour is the word's share of the side's work against its share of the world's. Each word links to the topic it comes from most.

How has their output grown?

Germany has out-published Austria every year since 1980.

still counting100k200kGermany185k in 2025Austria23k in 20251990200020102020

Fractional works per year.

Their share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share, because all of science grows. Each line is a side as a percentage of every work published that year.

still counting2.5%5.0%7.5%Germany3.1% in 2025Austria0.39% in 202519801990200020102020

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

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

The share of each side's works, year by year, that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. The average of all institutions is 10.0% (why not 10%).

still counting5%10%15%Austria10.6% in 2025Germany10.0% in 2025200020102020

A year with under 1% of the side's peak output is left out: a rate over a handful of papers says nothing. The latest years are still being cited.

Who holds more of the world's best institutions?

A country's average quality and the number of institutions it holds at the very top can disagree, and both are worth knowing. The counts are nested: an institution in the top 50 is also in the top 100.

Austria 05 Germany
  1. 0In the world top 503
  2. 0In the top 1007
  3. 4In the top 50039
  4. 9In the top 1,00061
  5. #20Elite capacityrank among 204 countries#4

Institutions ranked on research quality, 2022-now. Elite capacity counts a country's institutions by their worldwide rank, weighted so a place at #1 counts for more than one at #480.

Which publishes more research, Austria or Germany?

Germany publishes 7.9× as much research as Austria in 2022-now (708k against 90k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Austria or Germany?

10.7% of Austria's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 10.3% for Germany.

Is Austria or Germany growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +4% against 2018-21 for Austria, and -2% for Germany.

Which has more open access research, Austria or Germany?

37% of Austria's research is free to read, against 31% of Germany's.

Which has more world-class institutions, Austria or Germany?

Germany holds 7 of the world's top 100 research institutions and Austria 0; in the top 1,000 it is 61 against 9.

Which institutions lead in each country?

The highest-ranked institutions on each side on research quality, 2022-now. The percentage is each institution's own top-10% rate: the share of its works that are among the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. Every figure stands alone, so they do not add up to 100%.

Austria

  1. 1University of Vienna12.4% top 10% · 11k works
  2. 2Austrian Academy of Sciences13.5% top 10% · 2.9k works
  3. 3Universität Innsbruck11.7% top 10% · 5.8k works
  4. 4Medical University of Vienna12.3% top 10% · 6.7k works
  5. 5TU Wien8.6% top 10% · 6.4k works
  6. 6Johannes Kepler University of Linz9.7% top 10% · 3.7k works

Germany

  1. 1Max Planck Society15.7% top 10% · 24k works
  2. 2Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres10.5% top 10% · 37k works
  3. 3Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München12.5% top 10% · 18k works
  4. 4Technical University of Munich12.7% top 10% · 18k works
  5. 5Heidelberg University12.9% top 10% · 16k works
  6. 6Universität Hamburg12.1% top 10% · 15k works

The number is the rank inside the country. The track on each row is the top-10% rate; the tick is the average of all institutions, 10.0% (how it is set): teal above it, red below. The ranking is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each institution's own topics predict and adds a small reward for size, so the rates do not fall in order.

Who are the top researchers on each side?

The most cited researchers on each side, among those ranked.

Austria

  1. 1 Jiřı́ Friml #255 worldwide 68k citations · 572 works
  2. 2 Joeri Rogelj #605 worldwide 45k citations · 454 works
  3. 3 Kim Nasmyth #833 worldwide 61k citations · 355 works
  4. 4 Thomas Jenuwein #1,397 worldwide 59k citations · 220 works
  5. 5 Yoshihide Wada #1,643 worldwide 57k citations · 642 works

Germany

  1. 1 Matthias Mann #32 worldwide 308k citations · 1,470 works
  2. 2 Peer Bork #127 worldwide 396k citations · 955 works
  3. 3 Sebastiano Bernuzzi #129 worldwide 33k citations · 348 works
  4. 4 A. Ramos-Buades #173 worldwide 44k citations · 194 works
  5. 5 S. Husa #175 worldwide 108k citations · 420 works

Other comparisons

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