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Belgium vs Sweden

On research quality in 2022-now, Sweden ranks #12 in the world and Belgium #19, of 189 countries. Belgium stands higher in 2 of the 26 fields both publish in, Sweden in 24.

Research profiles alike: 0.71very similar shapes of research, whatever their size. How it is measured

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Belgium

World rank, 2022-now
#19
#19 all time
Works, 2022-now
106k
fractional
Top-10% rate
11.6%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
43%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Medical Terminology, Equine, Insect Science.

Sweden

World rank, 2022-now
#12
#12 all time
Works, 2022-now
121k
fractional
Top-10% rate
13.6%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
41%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Public Administration, Research and Theory, Equine.

Who leads, measure by measure?

Sweden leads on 6 of 9 measures: research quality, citation excellence for its fields, output, top-10% rate, citations per work and growth. Belgium leads on 2 of 9 measures: institutions in the world top 100 and open access. The two are level on international co-authorship.

Belgium 21 level6 Sweden
  1. #19Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#12
  2. 1.17×Citation excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected1.28×
  3. 106kOutputfractional works, 2022-now121k
  4. 11.6%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited13.6%
  5. 22.6Citations per workall time, per fractional work32.8
  6. 1World top 100institutions it holds among the world's best 1000
  7. 43%Open accessof its works free to read, all time41%
  8. 27%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time27%
  9. -13%Growthworks in 2022-25 against 2018-21; half a bar is no change+1%

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?

Belgium stands higher in 2 of 26 fields, Sweden in 24. Sweden leads most in Veterinary (#10 against #14); Belgium leads most in Immunology and Microbiology (#10 against #14). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

Belgium 224 Sweden
  1. #14Agricultural and Biological Sciences#12
  2. #15Arts and Humanities#13
  3. #19Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology#11
  4. #21Business, Management and Accounting#12
  5. #15Chemical Engineering#16
  6. #20Chemistry#19
  7. #24Computer Science#14
  8. #18Decision Sciences#10
  9. #19Dentistry#14
  10. #20Earth and Planetary Sciences#12
  11. #18Economics, Econometrics and Finance#12
  12. #24Energy#18
  13. #18Engineering#14
  14. #17Environmental Science#11
  15. #19Health Professions#11
  16. #10Immunology and Microbiology#14
  17. #25Materials Science#15
  18. #19Mathematics#11
  19. #16Medicine#10
  20. #19Neuroscience#13
  21. #20Nursing#13
  22. #17Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics#15
  23. #20Physics and Astronomy#13
  24. #20Psychology#11
  25. #20Social Sciences#11
  26. #14Veterinary#10

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 Belgium rankSweden rank Belgium top 10%Sweden top 10% Belgium worksSweden works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences #14 #12 11.2% 15.3% 5.1k 3.3k
Arts and Humanities #15 #13 12.0% 15.9% 4.7k 3.5k
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology #19 #11 11.5% 12.7% 6.1k 7k
Business, Management and Accounting #21 #12 13.1% 16.2% 2.4k 3.4k
Chemical Engineering #15 #16 9.2% 10.2% 395 362
Chemistry #20 #19 10.6% 10.7% 1.5k 1.3k
Computer Science #24 #14 9.5% 12.3% 5.9k 8k
Decision Sciences #18 #10 12.2% 12.6% 1k 1.2k
Dentistry #19 #14 16.8% 17.4% 419 501
Earth and Planetary Sciences #20 #12 10.3% 13.1% 1.6k 1.8k
Economics, Econometrics and Finance #18 #12 12.0% 13.1% 2.4k 2.2k
Energy #24 #18 9.3% 12.0% 645 793
Engineering #18 #14 9.8% 11.6% 14k 16k
Environmental Science #17 #11 10.8% 12.9% 5.1k 6.6k
Health Professions #19 #11 12.1% 13.7% 2.9k 4.1k
Immunology and Microbiology #10 #14 14.1% 12.1% 1.3k 1.5k
Materials Science #25 #15 9.3% 10.6% 2.8k 3.2k
Mathematics #19 #11 11.1% 11.4% 1.4k 1.4k
Medicine #16 #10 13.1% 14.9% 23k 27k
Neuroscience #19 #13 10.9% 11.6% 2.4k 2.5k
Nursing #20 #13 13.7% 14.8% 456 523
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics #17 #15 10.1% 12.6% 264 260
Physics and Astronomy #20 #13 11.0% 12.7% 2.8k 3.3k
Psychology #20 #11 11.2% 12.9% 3.9k 5.6k
Social Sciences #20 #11 12.3% 15.7% 13k 16k
Veterinary #14 #10 13.9% 14.0% 298 255

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.

Belgium

▲ 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. Epidemiology5,676▲ 1.18×140 topics
  2. Climate Change3,571◆ 1.09×131 topics
  3. Globalization2,872▲ 1.21×182 topics
  4. Machine Learning2,752▼ 0.68×95 topics
  5. Sustainability2,563◆ 0.87×139 topics
  6. Deep Learning2,543▼ 0.61×84 topics
  7. Inflammation2,452◆ 0.95×83 topics
  8. Quality of Life2,117▲ 1.21×61 topics
  9. Public Health1,899◆ 1.08×76 topics
  10. Environmental Impact1,870◆ 0.91×73 topics
  11. Mental Health1,824◆ 1.06×48 topics
  12. Treatment1,666◆ 1.13×52 topics
  13. Oxidative Stress1,578▼ 0.79×63 topics
  14. Biodiversity1,547▲ 1.68×38 topics
  15. Human Rights1,377◆ 1.11×90 topics
  16. Cardiovascular Disease1,345◆ 0.98×39 topics
  17. Renewable Energy1,332▼ 0.76×61 topics
  18. Diagnosis1,313▲ 1.17×41 topics
  19. Invasive Species1,118▲ 2.2×21 topics
  20. Identity1,090▲ 1.25×79 topics
  21. Genetics1,056▲ 1.24×27 topics
  22. Gender1,049▲ 1.62×58 topics
  23. Management1,048◆ 1.09×40 topics
  24. Clinical Trials974▲ 1.21×19 topics
  25. Social Justice970▲ 1.35×55 topics
  26. Religion929▲ 1.66×43 topics
  27. Colonialism917▲ 1.60×51 topics
  28. Evolution878▲ 2.7×19 topics
  29. Ethics878▲ 1.44×62 topics
  30. Conservation875▲ 1.69×24 topics
  31. Democracy797▲ 1.89×30 topics
  32. Phylogeny787▲ 3.9×17 topics
  33. Community Engagement766▲ 1.95×21 topics
  34. European Union738▲ 2.7×29 topics
  35. Taxonomy679▲ 3.9×15 topics
  36. Biogeography664▲ 1.97×20 topics
  37. DNA Barcoding651▲ 3.1×9 topics
  38. Territorial Governance539▲ 3.9×4 topics
  39. Local Development510▲ 4.1×2 topics
  40. Institutionalization460▲ 4.1×5 topics

Sweden

▲ 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. Epidemiology6,544▲ 1.18×140 topics
  2. Climate Change4,486▲ 1.19×130 topics
  3. Machine Learning3,820▼ 0.83×95 topics
  4. Sustainability3,715◆ 1.09×137 topics
  5. Inflammation3,539▲ 1.20×83 topics
  6. Deep Learning3,371▼ 0.70×84 topics
  7. Globalization3,192▲ 1.17×178 topics
  8. Quality of Life2,646▲ 1.32×61 topics
  9. Mental Health2,575▲ 1.30×48 topics
  10. Public Health2,428▲ 1.20×74 topics
  11. Cardiovascular Disease2,363▲ 1.49×39 topics
  12. Education2,204◆ 0.92×157 topics
  13. Oxidative Stress2,176◆ 0.95×63 topics
  14. Environmental Impact2,085◆ 0.88×72 topics
  15. Treatment1,949◆ 1.15×52 topics
  16. Renewable Energy1,903◆ 0.95×61 topics
  17. Risk Factors1,892▲ 1.24×37 topics
  18. Depression1,857▲ 1.52×26 topics
  19. Cancer1,618◆ 0.87×59 topics
  20. Qualitative Research1,570▲ 1.33×44 topics
  21. Pedagogy1,566▲ 2.2×30 topics
  22. Genetics1,468▲ 1.49×27 topics
  23. Big Data1,423◆ 1.07×36 topics
  24. Biomarkers1,375▲ 1.42×18 topics
  25. Metabolic Syndrome1,372▲ 1.22×24 topics
  26. Obesity1,261▲ 1.18×29 topics
  27. Global Burden1,216▲ 1.61×12 topics
  28. Health Effects1,214▲ 1.44×24 topics
  29. Anxiety1,175▲ 1.78×12 topics
  30. Ethics1,128▲ 1.60×61 topics
  31. Resilience1,072▲ 1.57×19 topics
  32. Learning985▲ 2.4×17 topics
  33. Social Sciences983▲ 4.9×23 topics
  34. Neoliberalism978▲ 1.95×29 topics
  35. Discourse Analysis974▲ 2.9×11 topics
  36. Prevalence974▲ 1.71×15 topics
  37. Special Education874▲ 11×6 topics
  38. Gender Studies862▲ 4.1×20 topics
  39. Methodology806▲ 12×7 topics
  40. Quantitative Methods780▲ 43×2 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?

Sweden has out-published Belgium every year since 2020, when it overtook it.

still counting20k40kSweden31k in 2025Belgium27k 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 counting0.50%1.0%1.5%Sweden0.53% in 2025Belgium0.46% 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%Sweden13.1% in 2025Belgium11.0% 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.

Belgium 11 level3 Sweden
  1. 0In the world top 500
  2. 1In the top 1000
  3. 6In the top 5009
  4. 9In the top 1,00012
  5. #17Elite capacityrank among 204 countries#14

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, Belgium or Sweden?

Sweden publishes 1.1× as much research as Belgium in 2022-now (121k against 106k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Belgium or Sweden?

13.6% of Sweden's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 11.6% for Belgium.

Is Belgium or Sweden growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +1% against 2018-21 for Sweden, and -13% for Belgium.

Which has more open access research, Belgium or Sweden?

43% of Belgium's research is free to read, against 41% of Sweden's.

Which has more world-class institutions, Belgium or Sweden?

Belgium holds 1 of the world's top 100 research institutions and Sweden 0; in the top 1,000 it is 9 against 12.

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%.

Belgium

  1. 1KU Leuven13.1% top 10% · 20k works
  2. 2Ghent University13.8% top 10% · 16k works
  3. 3University of Antwerp13.0% top 10% · 7.1k works
  4. 4UCLouvain10.1% top 10% · 7.4k works
  5. 5Vrije Universiteit Brussel13.0% top 10% · 6k works
  6. 6Université Libre de Bruxelles11.1% top 10% · 6.5k works

Sweden

  1. 1Karolinska Institutet16.4% top 10% · 12k works
  2. 2Uppsala University13.3% top 10% · 11k works
  3. 3University of Gothenburg14.4% top 10% · 9.8k works
  4. 4Lund University13.0% top 10% · 12k works
  5. 5Stockholm University14.7% top 10% · 7.1k works
  6. 6Chalmers University of Technology12.9% top 10% · 5.3k 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.

Belgium

  1. 1 Jeroen Raes #1,855 worldwide 126k citations · 470 works
  2. 2 Sarah‐Maria Fendt #3,456 worldwide 20k citations · 242 works
  3. 3 M. Maes #3,749 worldwide 54k citations · 515 works
  4. 4 Mohamed Lamkanfi #4,281 worldwide 30k citations · 149 works
  5. 5 Diego G. Miralles #6,426 worldwide 38k citations · 485 works

Sweden

  1. 1 Fredrik Bäckhed #256 worldwide 117k citations · 348 works
  2. 2 Carl Folke #294 worldwide 182k citations · 488 works
  3. 3 Patrik K. E. Magnusson #1,844 worldwide 120k citations · 734 works
  4. 4 Anna Maria Langkilde #2,063 worldwide 23k citations · 310 works
  5. 5 Garry Peterson #2,140 worldwide 33k citations · 234 works

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