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Botswana vs Namibia

On research quality in 2022-now, Botswana ranks #92 in the world and Namibia #93, of 189 countries. Botswana stands higher in 4 of the 6 fields both publish in, Namibia in 2.

Research profiles alike: 0.75very similar shapes of research, whatever their size. How it is measured

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Botswana

World rank, 2022-now
#92
#91 all time
Works, 2022-now
3k
fractional
Top-10% rate
8.5%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
47%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Archeology, Forestry, Statistics and Probability.

Namibia

World rank, 2022-now
#93
#111 all time
Works, 2022-now
2.3k
fractional
Top-10% rate
6.2%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
57%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Research and Theory, Archeology, Library and Information Sciences.

Who leads, measure by measure?

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

Botswana 41 level4 Namibia
  1. #92Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#93
  2. 0.90×Excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected0.93×
  3. 3kOutputfractional works, 2022-now2.3k
  4. 8.5%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited6.2%
  5. 12.4Citations per workall time, per fractional work9.1
  6. 0World top 100institutions it holds among the world's best 1000
  7. 47%Open accessof its works free to read, all time57%
  8. 33%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time38%
  9. +16%Growthworks in 2022-25 against 2018-21; half a bar is no change+43%

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, excellence and the top-10% rate are explained in the methodology.

Who leads in each field?

Botswana stands higher in 4 of 6 fields, Namibia in 2. Botswana leads most in Environmental Science (#69 against #95); Namibia leads most in Computer Science (#81 against #101). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

Botswana 42 Namibia
  1. #80Agricultural and Biological Sciences-
  2. #101Computer Science#81
  3. #75Engineering-
  4. #69Environmental Science#95
  5. #86Medicine#95
  6. #114Social Sciences#93

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 Botswana rankNamibia rank Botswana top 10%Namibia top 10% Botswana worksNamibia works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences #80 - 10.7% - 308 -
Computer Science #101 #81 7.0% 4.4% 208 210
Engineering #75 - 10.7% - 360 -
Environmental Science #69 #95 8.7% 6.0% 284 208
Medicine #86 #95 9.0% 6.8% 335 240
Social Sciences #114 #93 7.4% 6.1% 471 482

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.

Botswana

▲ 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. Climate Change192▲ 2.1×87 topics
  2. Sustainability159▲ 1.89×75 topics
  3. Machine Learning144▲ 1.26×77 topics
  4. Epidemiology104▼ 0.76×111 topics
  5. Globalization95▲ 1.40×72 topics
  6. Environmental Impact91▲ 1.55×52 topics
  7. Deep Learning89▼ 0.76×67 topics
  8. Renewable Energy73▲ 1.46×40 topics
  9. Remote Sensing70▲ 1.67×31 topics
  10. Economic Growth66▲ 2.4×27 topics
  11. Colonialism66▲ 4.0×14 topics
  12. Antiretroviral Therapy48▲ 8.6×6 topics
  13. Social Justice47▲ 2.3×26 topics
  14. Development46▲ 3.8×19 topics
  15. Biodiversity Conservation46▲ 3.6×13 topics
  16. Risk Management46▲ 2.8×13 topics
  17. Sustainable Agriculture44▲ 4.1×12 topics
  18. Higher Education42▲ 2.3×17 topics
  19. Genetic Diversity41▲ 2.7×20 topics
  20. Adaptation40▲ 4.0×11 topics
  21. Political Economy40▲ 4.5×11 topics
  22. Smallholder Farmers37▲ 5.1×5 topics
  23. Poverty Reduction36▲ 8.1×5 topics
  24. Land Use Change35▲ 3.4×7 topics
  25. Maternal Mortality31▲ 4.1×5 topics
  26. Community Health Workers31▲ 10×2 topics
  27. Bayesian Inference30▲ 8.9×4 topics
  28. Health Inequalities28▲ 6.8×3 topics
  29. Mortality Rates28▲ 8.5×2 topics
  30. Nutritional Value27▲ 7.0×4 topics
  31. Gender Inequality27▲ 5.7×6 topics
  32. Land Reform27▲ 17×2 topics
  33. Weibull Distribution26▲ 17×2 topics
  34. Generalized Exponential25▲ 44×1 topic
  35. Skew Distributions25▲ 44×1 topic
  36. Livelihoods25▲ 21×2 topics
  37. Phytochemicals25▲ 6.7×7 topics
  38. Child Mortality25▲ 10×1 topic
  39. Health Systems25▲ 10×1 topic
  40. HIV Transmission23▲ 8.7×2 topics

Namibia

▲ 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. Climate Change142▲ 1.98×86 topics
  2. Sustainability137▲ 2.1×77 topics
  3. Machine Learning109▲ 1.25×64 topics
  4. Globalization101▲ 1.96×83 topics
  5. Deep Learning88◆ 0.97×63 topics
  6. Artificial Intelligence71▲ 1.89×38 topics
  7. Education66▲ 1.47×58 topics
  8. Higher Education65▲ 4.6×23 topics
  9. Sustainable Development65▲ 1.57×59 topics
  10. Renewable Energy62▲ 1.62×36 topics
  11. Mental Health60▲ 1.60×35 topics
  12. Healthcare59▲ 1.97×21 topics
  13. Internet of Things59▲ 2.6×22 topics
  14. Big Data58▲ 2.3×22 topics
  15. Educational Technology56▲ 1.80×29 topics
  16. Social Capital54▲ 4.0×17 topics
  17. Supply Chain Management54▲ 2.3×17 topics
  18. Economic Development50▲ 2.4×23 topics
  19. Innovation50▲ 1.82×44 topics
  20. Technology Integration48▲ 5.8×12 topics
  21. Economic Growth47▲ 2.2×26 topics
  22. Biodiversity46▲ 2.3×30 topics
  23. Leadership42▲ 3.2×21 topics
  24. Colonialism40▲ 3.2×16 topics
  25. Population Dynamics40▲ 5.8×10 topics
  26. Job Satisfaction39▲ 3.4×14 topics
  27. Lifelong Learning39▲ 7.2×9 topics
  28. Rural Development37▲ 4.1×13 topics
  29. Habitat Selection33▲ 17×2 topics
  30. Community Health Workers33▲ 14×2 topics
  31. Cloud Computing32▲ 4.3×12 topics
  32. Poverty Reduction32▲ 9.2×6 topics
  33. Trophic Cascades31▲ 13×2 topics
  34. Multilingualism31▲ 7.3×4 topics
  35. Student Perceptions28▲ 5.9×7 topics
  36. Animal Movement27▲ 20×1 topic
  37. Bilingual Education27▲ 8.9×3 topics
  38. Language Policy27▲ 7.4×3 topics
  39. Occupancy Rates27▲ 20×1 topic
  40. Gender Inequality24▲ 6.6×6 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?

Botswana has out-published Namibia every year since 2024, when it overtook it.

still counting5001kBotswana819 in 2025Namibia606 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 counting0.010%0.020%Botswana0.014% in 2025Namibia0.010% 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%Botswana9.3% in 2025Namibia6.5% 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.

Botswana 05 level0 Namibia
  1. 0In the world top 500
  2. 0In the top 1000
  3. 0In the top 5000
  4. 0In the top 1,0000
  5. #51Elite capacityrank among 204 countries#51

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, Botswana or Namibia?

Botswana publishes 1.3× as much research as Namibia in 2022-now (3k against 2.3k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Botswana or Namibia?

8.5% of Botswana's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 6.2% for Namibia.

Is Botswana or Namibia growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +43% against 2018-21 for Namibia, and +16% for Botswana.

Which has more open access research, Botswana or Namibia?

57% of Namibia's research is free to read, against 47% of Botswana's.

Which has more world-class institutions, Botswana or Namibia?

Botswana holds 0 of the world's top 100 research institutions and Namibia 0; in the top 1,000 it is 0 against 0.

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%.

Botswana

  1. 1University of Botswana7.6% top 10% · 1.4k works
  2. 2Botswana International University of Science and Technology8.6% top 10% · 674 works
  3. 3Botswana Geoscience Institute8.8% top 10% · 116 works
  4. 4Botho University8.5% top 10% · 148 works
  5. 5Ministry of Agriculture14.6% top 10% · 169 works
  6. 6Botswana Open University3.9% top 10% · 76 works

Namibia

  1. 1University of Namibia5.5% top 10% · 1.4k works
  2. 2Namibia University of Science and Technology7.0% top 10% · 641 works
  3. 3International University of Management6.6% top 10% · 111 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.

Botswana

  1. 1 Godfrey Mutashambara Rwegerera #31,057 worldwide 54k citations · 105 works
  2. 2 John Weldon McNutt #207,426 worldwide 5.3k citations · 119 works
  3. 3 Joseph M. Makhema #280,791 worldwide 14k citations · 95 works
  4. 4 Peter Vuylsteke #396,259 worldwide 7.7k citations · 317 works
  5. 5 Sununguko Wata Mpoloka #453,404 worldwide 2.7k citations · 62 works

Namibia

  1. 1 Michael Sony #63,785 worldwide 6.2k citations · 191 works
  2. 2 Uchendu Eugene Chigbu #104,490 worldwide 2.1k citations · 87 works
  3. 3 Gillian Maggs‐Kölling #275,971 worldwide 2.7k citations · 102 works
  4. 4 Mary Seely #392,753 worldwide 5.9k citations · 164 works
  5. 5 Subhash S. Naik #540,111 worldwide 2k citations · 20 works