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Botswana vs Zimbabwe

On research quality in 2022-now, Zimbabwe ranks #75 in the world and Botswana #92, of 189 countries. Botswana stands higher in 2 of the 10 fields both publish in, Zimbabwe in 8.

Research profiles alike: 0.74very 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.

Zimbabwe

World rank, 2022-now
#75
#82 all time
Works, 2022-now
7.2k
fractional
Top-10% rate
6.9%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
52%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Fuel Technology, Archeology, Public Administration.

Who leads, measure by measure?

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

Botswana 41 level4 Zimbabwe
  1. #92Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#75
  2. 0.90×Excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected0.83×
  3. 3kOutputfractional works, 2022-now7.2k
  4. 8.5%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited6.9%
  5. 12.4Citations per workall time, per fractional work10.3
  6. 0World top 100institutions it holds among the world's best 1000
  7. 47%Open accessof its works free to read, all time52%
  8. 33%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time31%
  9. +16%Growthworks in 2022-25 against 2018-21; half a bar is no change+51%

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 2 of 10 fields, Zimbabwe in 8. Zimbabwe leads most in Social Sciences (#72 against #114); Botswana leads most in Engineering (#75 against #97). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

Botswana 28 Zimbabwe
  1. #80Agricultural and Biological Sciences#74
  2. -Business, Management and Accounting#76
  3. #101Computer Science#87
  4. -Economics, Econometrics and Finance#70
  5. #75Engineering#97
  6. #69Environmental Science#85
  7. -Health Professions#72
  8. #86Medicine#62
  9. -Psychology#79
  10. #114Social Sciences#72

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 rankZimbabwe rank Botswana top 10%Zimbabwe top 10% Botswana worksZimbabwe works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences #80 #74 10.7% 7.3% 308 623
Business, Management and Accounting - #76 - 6.0% - 548
Computer Science #101 #87 7.0% 6.8% 208 336
Economics, Econometrics and Finance - #70 - 4.6% - 367
Engineering #75 #97 10.7% 4.3% 360 677
Environmental Science #69 #85 8.7% 4.8% 284 509
Health Professions - #72 - 9.9% - 276
Medicine #86 #62 9.0% 9.9% 335 785
Psychology - #79 - 4.9% - 210
Social Sciences #114 #72 7.4% 7.3% 471 2k

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

Zimbabwe

▲ 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. Colonialism557▲ 14×23 topics
  2. Social Justice455▲ 9.1×35 topics
  3. Nationalism444▲ 12×15 topics
  4. Sustainability430▲ 2.1×96 topics
  5. Political Economy415▲ 19×14 topics
  6. Climate Change406▲ 1.79×108 topics
  7. Land Reform389▲ 99×2 topics
  8. History388▲ 6.7×13 topics
  9. Agrarian Relations362▲ 470×1 topic
  10. Zimbabwe362▲ 470×1 topic
  11. Sustainable Development355▲ 2.7×84 topics
  12. Globalization319▲ 1.94×104 topics
  13. Social Capital236▲ 5.4×18 topics
  14. Environmental Impact225▲ 1.58×65 topics
  15. Mental Health203▲ 1.70×41 topics
  16. COVID-19196▲ 1.81×29 topics
  17. Economic Growth190▲ 2.8×30 topics
  18. Higher Education180▲ 4.0×27 topics
  19. Human Rights179▲ 2.1×51 topics
  20. Poverty Reduction175▲ 16×6 topics
  21. Innovation173▲ 2.0×56 topics
  22. Digital Transformation161▲ 3.6×22 topics
  23. Economic Development157▲ 2.4×38 topics
  24. Development142▲ 4.8×17 topics
  25. Sustainable Agriculture134▲ 5.2×14 topics
  26. Gender Inequality128▲ 11×6 topics
  27. Social Impact128▲ 3.9×15 topics
  28. Vulnerability125▲ 6.4×8 topics
  29. Poverty Alleviation124▲ 16×2 topics
  30. Antiretroviral Therapy122▲ 9.0×6 topics
  31. Rural Development122▲ 4.2×15 topics
  32. Health Equity115▲ 4.7×6 topics
  33. Land Tenure114▲ 33×2 topics
  34. Smallholder Farmers107▲ 6.1×6 topics
  35. Postcolonialism93▲ 7.8×10 topics
  36. Urban Poverty87▲ 24×2 topics
  37. Housing Policy87▲ 37×1 topic
  38. Slum Upgrading87▲ 37×1 topic
  39. Decolonization86▲ 13×7 topics
  40. Community Health Workers84▲ 11×2 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?

Zimbabwe has out-published Botswana every year since 2010, when it overtook it.

still counting1k2k3kZimbabwe2,138 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 counting0.020%0.040%Zimbabwe0.036% 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%Botswana9.3% in 2025Zimbabwe7.9% 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 Zimbabwe
  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 Zimbabwe?

Zimbabwe publishes 2.4× as much research as Botswana in 2022-now (7.2k against 3k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Botswana or Zimbabwe?

8.5% of Botswana's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 6.9% for Zimbabwe.

Is Botswana or Zimbabwe growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +51% against 2018-21 for Zimbabwe, and +16% for Botswana.

Which has more open access research, Botswana or Zimbabwe?

52% of Zimbabwe's research is free to read, against 47% of Botswana's.

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

Botswana holds 0 of the world's top 100 research institutions and Zimbabwe 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

Zimbabwe

  1. 1University of Zimbabwe6.5% top 10% · 1.5k works
  2. 2National University of Science and Technology6.3% top 10% · 1.2k works
  3. 3Great Zimbabwe University5.6% top 10% · 524 works
  4. 4Midlands State University6.6% top 10% · 1.1k works
  5. 5Chinhoyi University of Technology6.9% top 10% · 389 works
  6. 6Harare Institute of Technology3.4% top 10% · 228 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

Zimbabwe

  1. 1 Jephat Chifamba #20,133 worldwide 23k citations · 165 works
  2. 2 Brighton Nyagadza #68,624 worldwide 1.6k citations · 133 works
  3. 3 Régis Chikowo #103,612 worldwide 6.2k citations · 178 works
  4. 4 Christian Thierfelder #135,188 worldwide 10k citations · 271 works
  5. 5 Willis Gwenzi #170,977 worldwide 8.2k citations · 219 works