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Botswana vs South Africa

On research quality in 2022-now, South Africa ranks #29 in the world and Botswana #92, of 189 countries. Botswana stands higher in 0 of the 25 fields both publish in, South Africa in 25.

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.

South Africa

World rank, 2022-now
#29
#31 all time
Works, 2022-now
113k
fractional
Top-10% rate
10.6%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
49%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Archeology, Religious studies, Research and Theory.

Who leads, measure by measure?

South Africa leads on 7 of 9 measures: research quality, citation excellence for its fields, output, top-10% rate, citations per work, open access and growth. Botswana leads on 1 of 9 measures: international co-authorship. The two are level on institutions in the world top 100.

Botswana 11 level7 South Africa
  1. #92Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#29
  2. 0.90×Citation excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected1.06×
  3. 3kOutputfractional works, 2022-now113k
  4. 8.5%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited10.6%
  5. 12.4Citations per workall time, per fractional work16.2
  6. 0World top 100institutions it holds among the world's best 1000
  7. 47%Open accessof its works free to read, all time49%
  8. 33%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time22%
  9. +16%Growthworks in 2022-25 against 2018-21; half a bar is no change+17%

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?

Botswana stands higher in 0 of 25 fields, South Africa in 25. South Africa leads most in Social Sciences (#22 against #114). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

Botswana 025 South Africa
  1. #80Agricultural and Biological Sciences#28
  2. -Arts and Humanities#20
  3. -Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology#31
  4. -Business, Management and Accounting#29
  5. -Chemical Engineering#32
  6. -Chemistry#38
  7. #101Computer Science#32
  8. -Decision Sciences#26
  9. -Dentistry#39
  10. -Earth and Planetary Sciences#28
  11. -Economics, Econometrics and Finance#22
  12. -Energy#43
  13. #75Engineering#36
  14. #69Environmental Science#29
  15. -Health Professions#29
  16. -Immunology and Microbiology#24
  17. -Materials Science#32
  18. -Mathematics#28
  19. #86Medicine#23
  20. -Neuroscience#37
  21. -Nursing#34
  22. -Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics#24
  23. -Physics and Astronomy#33
  24. -Psychology#24
  25. #114Social Sciences#22

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 rankSouth Africa rank Botswana top 10%South Africa top 10% Botswana worksSouth Africa works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences #80 #28 10.7% 12.1% 308 6.9k
Arts and Humanities - #20 - 15.9% - 4.3k
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology - #31 - 9.4% - 3.7k
Business, Management and Accounting - #29 - 9.4% - 6.3k
Chemical Engineering - #32 - 7.1% - 301
Chemistry - #38 - 10.4% - 1.4k
Computer Science #101 #32 7.0% 10.9% 208 5.6k
Decision Sciences - #26 - 9.6% - 1.8k
Dentistry - #39 - 8.8% - 243
Earth and Planetary Sciences - #28 - 9.1% - 1.5k
Economics, Econometrics and Finance - #22 - 12.1% - 4.3k
Energy - #43 - 10.4% - 1.2k
Engineering #75 #36 10.7% 8.6% 360 11k
Environmental Science #69 #29 8.7% 9.2% 284 7.9k
Health Professions - #29 - 10.6% - 4.3k
Immunology and Microbiology - #24 - 11.1% - 978
Materials Science - #32 - 9.1% - 2.7k
Mathematics - #28 - 11.5% - 1.3k
Medicine #86 #23 9.0% 10.2% 335 15k
Neuroscience - #37 - 9.2% - 690
Nursing - #34 - 11.2% - 783
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics - #24 - 11.6% - 307
Physics and Astronomy - #33 - 9.4% - 1.7k
Psychology - #24 - 9.1% - 4.6k
Social Sciences #114 #22 7.4% 11.7% 471 24k

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

South Africa

▲ 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 Change4,986▲ 1.43×130 topics
  2. Sustainability4,915▲ 1.56×137 topics
  3. Epidemiology4,800◆ 0.94×140 topics
  4. Globalization4,533▲ 1.79×177 topics
  5. Machine Learning3,278▼ 0.77×97 topics
  6. Human Rights3,247▲ 2.5×88 topics
  7. Mental Health3,037▲ 1.65×48 topics
  8. Environmental Impact2,887▲ 1.32×72 topics
  9. Higher Education2,704▲ 4.0×34 topics
  10. Renewable Energy2,666▲ 1.43×61 topics
  11. Colonialism2,633▲ 4.3×49 topics
  12. Education2,535◆ 1.15×152 topics
  13. Sustainable Development2,520▲ 1.25×110 topics
  14. Economic Growth2,417▲ 2.3×37 topics
  15. Social Justice2,223▲ 2.9×53 topics
  16. Social Capital1,916▲ 2.9×21 topics
  17. South Africa1,591▲ 45×4 topics
  18. Nationalism1,540▲ 2.7×32 topics
  19. Development1,506▲ 3.3×23 topics
  20. Inequality1,451▲ 5.0×18 topics
  21. Antiretroviral Therapy1,327▲ 6.3×6 topics
  22. Environmental Governance1,301▲ 15×6 topics
  23. Equality1,234▲ 16×8 topics
  24. Poverty Reduction1,202▲ 7.2×7 topics
  25. Public Participation1,188▲ 42×3 topics
  26. Race1,174▲ 7.6×19 topics
  27. Judicial Review1,166▲ 11×5 topics
  28. Gender-based Violence1,164▲ 16×3 topics
  29. Postcolonialism1,160▲ 6.3×18 topics
  30. Constitutionalism1,141▲ 10×5 topics
  31. Consumer Protection1,141▲ 21×4 topics
  32. Legal Research1,128▲ 7.3×3 topics
  33. Developmental Local Government1,116▲ 84×1 topic
  34. Socio-Economic Rights1,116▲ 84×1 topic
  35. Decolonization974▲ 9.3×8 topics
  36. Poverty Alleviation928▲ 7.6×3 topics
  37. economic empowerment910▲ 44×2 topics
  38. post-apartheid910▲ 91×1 topic
  39. protests910▲ 91×1 topic
  40. NGOs883▲ 7.4×5 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?

South Africa has out-published Botswana every year since 1980.

still counting20k40kSouth Africa31k in 2025Botswana819 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 counting0.20%0.40%0.60%South Africa0.53% in 2025Botswana0.014% 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%South Africa10.9% in 2025Botswana9.3% 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 02 level3 South Africa
  1. 0In the world top 500
  2. 0In the top 1000
  3. 0In the top 5002
  4. 0In the top 1,0004
  5. #51Elite capacityrank among 204 countries#31

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 South Africa?

South Africa publishes 37.8× as much research as Botswana in 2022-now (113k against 3k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Botswana or South Africa?

10.6% of South Africa's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 8.5% for Botswana.

Is Botswana or South Africa growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +17% against 2018-21 for South Africa, and +16% for Botswana.

Which has more open access research, Botswana or South Africa?

49% of South Africa's research is free to read, against 47% of Botswana's.

Which has more world-class institutions, Botswana or South Africa?

Botswana holds 0 of the world's top 100 research institutions and South Africa 0; in the top 1,000 it is 0 against 4.

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

South Africa

  1. 1University of Cape Town10.9% top 10% · 7.2k works
  2. 2Stellenbosch University9.8% top 10% · 7.9k works
  3. 3University of the Witwatersrand10.5% top 10% · 8.9k works
  4. 4University of Johannesburg12.9% top 10% · 13k works
  5. 5University of Pretoria9.6% top 10% · 9k works
  6. 6University of South Africa10.9% top 10% · 9k 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

South Africa

  1. 1 Surajit Bag #6,981 worldwide 13k citations · 234 works
  2. 2 Christopher H. Trisos #8,500 worldwide 15k citations · 130 works
  3. 3 Osaretin Christabel Okonji #8,695 worldwide 39k citations · 121 works
  4. 4 Crick Lund #10,675 worldwide 34k citations · 524 works
  5. 5 Benn K. D. Sartorius #10,888 worldwide 208k citations · 402 works

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