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Canada vs Sweden

On research quality in 2022-now, Canada ranks #8 in the world and Sweden #12, of 189 countries. Canada stands higher in 26 of the 26 fields both publish in, Sweden in 0.

Research profiles alike: 0.84very similar shapes of research, whatever their size. How it is measured

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Canada

World rank, 2022-now
#8
#7 all time
Works, 2022-now
394k
fractional
Top-10% rate
11.5%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
34%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Medical Terminology, Public Administration, Library and Information Sciences.

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

Canada 36 Sweden
  1. #8Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#12
  2. 1.10×Citation excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected1.28×
  3. 394kOutputfractional works, 2022-now121k
  4. 11.5%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited13.6%
  5. 29.1Citations per workall time, per fractional work32.8
  6. 3World top 100institutions it holds among the world's best 1000
  7. 34%Open accessof its works free to read, all time41%
  8. 23%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time27%
  9. -2%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?

Canada stands higher in 26 of 26 fields, Sweden in 0. Canada leads most in Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (#6 against #15). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

Canada 260 Sweden
  1. #10Agricultural and Biological Sciences#12
  2. #10Arts and Humanities#13
  3. #7Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology#11
  4. #11Business, Management and Accounting#12
  5. #10Chemical Engineering#16
  6. #11Chemistry#19
  7. #8Computer Science#14
  8. #8Decision Sciences#10
  9. #11Dentistry#14
  10. #9Earth and Planetary Sciences#12
  11. #9Economics, Econometrics and Finance#12
  12. #8Energy#18
  13. #8Engineering#14
  14. #9Environmental Science#11
  15. #6Health Professions#11
  16. #8Immunology and Microbiology#14
  17. #11Materials Science#15
  18. #10Mathematics#11
  19. #7Medicine#10
  20. #7Neuroscience#13
  21. #8Nursing#13
  22. #6Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics#15
  23. #11Physics and Astronomy#13
  24. #9Psychology#11
  25. #10Social Sciences#11
  26. #8Veterinary#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 Canada rankSweden rank Canada top 10%Sweden top 10% Canada worksSweden works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences #10 #12 12.1% 15.3% 12k 3.3k
Arts and Humanities #10 #13 11.0% 15.9% 12k 3.5k
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology #7 #11 10.7% 12.7% 21k 7k
Business, Management and Accounting #11 #12 12.5% 16.2% 7.8k 3.4k
Chemical Engineering #10 #16 10.2% 10.2% 1k 362
Chemistry #11 #19 9.7% 10.7% 4k 1.3k
Computer Science #8 #14 11.6% 12.3% 26k 8k
Decision Sciences #8 #10 11.7% 12.6% 4k 1.2k
Dentistry #11 #14 14.5% 17.4% 923 501
Earth and Planetary Sciences #9 #12 9.8% 13.1% 7.1k 1.8k
Economics, Econometrics and Finance #9 #12 11.2% 13.1% 7.6k 2.2k
Energy #8 #18 11.5% 12.0% 2.3k 793
Engineering #8 #14 11.0% 11.6% 49k 16k
Environmental Science #9 #11 10.2% 12.9% 22k 6.6k
Health Professions #6 #11 12.2% 13.7% 17k 4.1k
Immunology and Microbiology #8 #14 10.8% 12.1% 4k 1.5k
Materials Science #11 #15 10.9% 10.6% 7.7k 3.2k
Mathematics #10 #11 10.2% 11.4% 4.8k 1.4k
Medicine #7 #10 12.5% 14.9% 91k 27k
Neuroscience #7 #13 10.1% 11.6% 10k 2.5k
Nursing #8 #13 13.0% 14.8% 1.9k 523
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics #6 #15 12.7% 12.6% 926 260
Physics and Astronomy #11 #13 10.5% 12.7% 7.8k 3.3k
Psychology #9 #11 11.0% 12.9% 20k 5.6k
Social Sciences #10 #11 11.8% 15.7% 50k 16k
Veterinary #8 #10 13.3% 14.0% 744 255

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.

Canada

▲ 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. Epidemiology22k▲ 1.22×140 topics
  2. Climate Change15k▲ 1.28×132 topics
  3. Machine Learning14k◆ 0.92×97 topics
  4. Deep Learning13k▼ 0.84×85 topics
  5. Mental Health11k▲ 1.69×48 topics
  6. Inflammation9,824◆ 1.04×83 topics
  7. Globalization9,120◆ 1.05×184 topics
  8. Public Health8,832▲ 1.37×77 topics
  9. Sustainability8,267▼ 0.76×140 topics
  10. Quality of Life8,126▲ 1.27×61 topics
  11. Depression6,561▲ 1.68×26 topics
  12. Oxidative Stress6,449◆ 0.88×63 topics
  13. Risk Factors6,217▲ 1.27×37 topics
  14. Cardiovascular Disease6,166▲ 1.22×39 topics
  15. Treatment6,000◆ 1.11×52 topics
  16. Environmental Impact5,759▼ 0.76×74 topics
  17. Neural Networks5,648▼ 0.82×42 topics
  18. Identity5,329▲ 1.66×79 topics
  19. Healthcare5,154◆ 1.02×44 topics
  20. Social Justice4,444▲ 1.68×55 topics
  21. Genetics4,384▲ 1.40×27 topics
  22. Clinical Trials4,253▲ 1.44×19 topics
  23. History4,185▲ 1.36×66 topics
  24. Neurological Disorders3,955▲ 1.56×20 topics
  25. Biomarkers3,928▲ 1.27×18 topics
  26. Anxiety3,907▲ 1.85×12 topics
  27. Gender3,903▲ 1.63×58 topics
  28. Social Support3,664▲ 1.53×20 topics
  29. Aging3,638▲ 1.50×19 topics
  30. Nationalism3,615▲ 1.81×34 topics
  31. Resilience3,604▲ 1.65×19 topics
  32. Mortality3,594▲ 1.42×13 topics
  33. Primary Care3,586▲ 2.2×15 topics
  34. Community Engagement3,437▲ 2.4×22 topics
  35. Prevalence3,364▲ 1.85×15 topics
  36. Adolescents3,105▲ 1.91×11 topics
  37. Ethical Considerations3,064▲ 1.99×21 topics
  38. Health Equity2,966▲ 2.3×6 topics
  39. Health Disparities2,720▲ 2.4×9 topics
  40. Immigration2,201▲ 4.5×9 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?

Canada has out-published Sweden every year since 1980.

still counting50k100k150kCanada100k in 2025Sweden31k 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 counting2.0%4.0%6.0%Canada1.7% in 2025Sweden0.53% 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 2025Canada11.0% 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.

Canada 50 Sweden
  1. 1In the world top 500
  2. 3In the top 1000
  3. 16In the top 5009
  4. 28In the top 1,00012
  5. #8Elite 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, Canada or Sweden?

Canada publishes 3.2× as much research as Sweden in 2022-now (394k against 121k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Canada or Sweden?

13.6% of Sweden's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 11.5% for Canada.

Is Canada or Sweden growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +1% against 2018-21 for Sweden, and -2% for Canada.

Which has more open access research, Canada or Sweden?

41% of Sweden's research is free to read, against 34% of Canada's.

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

Canada holds 3 of the world's top 100 research institutions and Sweden 0; in the top 1,000 it is 28 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%.

Canada

  1. 1University of Toronto12.9% top 10% · 42k works
  2. 2McGill University12.5% top 10% · 21k works
  3. 3University of British Columbia13.4% top 10% · 25k works
  4. 4University of Alberta11.8% top 10% · 18k works
  5. 5University of Ottawa12.0% top 10% · 14k works
  6. 6University of Calgary12.0% top 10% · 14k 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.

Canada

  1. 1 Joseph Henrich #34 worldwide 64k citations · 1,402 works
  2. 2 Xueliang Andy Sun #228 worldwide 89k citations · 947 works
  3. 3 Edward Hartley Sargent #247 worldwide 185k citations · 1,215 works
  4. 4 Nina Thiessen #296 worldwide 112k citations · 213 works
  5. 5 Jacqueline E. Schein #409 worldwide 149k citations · 233 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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