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Ghana vs Kenya

On research quality in 2022-now, Kenya ranks #57 in the world and Ghana #58, of 189 countries. Ghana stands higher in 14 of the 19 fields both publish in, Kenya in 5.

Research profiles alike: 0.97very similar shapes of research, whatever their size. How it is measured

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Ghana

World rank, 2022-now
#58
#68 all time
Works, 2022-now
27k
fractional
Top-10% rate
10.8%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
65%
of its works free to read

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

Kenya

World rank, 2022-now
#57
#58 all time
Works, 2022-now
29k
fractional
Top-10% rate
5.7%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
70%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Safety Research, Business and International Management, Library and Information Sciences.

Who leads, measure by measure?

Ghana leads on 4 of 9 measures: excellence for its fields, top-10% rate, international co-authorship and growth. Kenya leads on 3 of 9 measures: research quality, output and open access. The two are level on citations per work and institutions in the world top 100.

Ghana 42 level3 Kenya
  1. #58Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#57
  2. 1.00×Excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected0.73×
  3. 27kOutputfractional works, 2022-now29k
  4. 10.8%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited5.7%
  5. 12.1Citations per workall time, per fractional work12.3
  6. 0World top 100institutions it holds among the world's best 1000
  7. 65%Open accessof its works free to read, all time70%
  8. 33%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time26%
  9. +42%Growthworks in 2022-25 against 2018-21; half a bar is no change+28%

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?

Ghana stands higher in 14 of 19 fields, Kenya in 5. Ghana leads most in Decision Sciences (#45 against #66); Kenya leads most in Mathematics (#52 against #60). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

Ghana 145 Kenya
  1. #43Agricultural and Biological Sciences#39
  2. #55Arts and Humanities#64
  3. #61Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology#57
  4. #46Business, Management and Accounting#69
  5. #62Computer Science#73
  6. #45Decision Sciences#66
  7. #58Earth and Planetary Sciences-
  8. #41Economics, Econometrics and Finance#65
  9. #57Energy-
  10. #72Engineering#79
  11. #52Environmental Science#58
  12. #42Health Professions#57
  13. #40Immunology and Microbiology#36
  14. #70Materials Science#77
  15. #60Mathematics#52
  16. #58Medicine#44
  17. #40Nursing#41
  18. #58Psychology#70
  19. #59Social Sciences#71

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 Ghana rankKenya rank Ghana top 10%Kenya top 10% Ghana worksKenya works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences #43 #39 11.0% 9.6% 2.3k 3.1k
Arts and Humanities #55 #64 11.5% 7.2% 746 720
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology #61 #57 9.3% 8.2% 637 705
Business, Management and Accounting #46 #69 12.9% 2.6% 2.3k 3.3k
Computer Science #62 #73 10.8% 4.8% 1.4k 1.3k
Decision Sciences #45 #66 9.5% 3.1% 458 710
Earth and Planetary Sciences #58 - 11.4% - 207 -
Economics, Econometrics and Finance #41 #65 13.1% 3.4% 1.6k 1.8k
Energy #57 - 9.8% - 235 -
Engineering #72 #79 8.0% 5.8% 1.7k 1.4k
Environmental Science #52 #58 9.1% 6.5% 1.9k 2k
Health Professions #42 #57 13.2% 7.5% 1.1k 1.1k
Immunology and Microbiology #40 #36 12.1% 9.0% 295 308
Materials Science #70 #77 7.5% 5.0% 206 232
Mathematics #60 #52 11.1% 5.7% 277 352
Medicine #58 #44 10.1% 7.1% 4.3k 3.9k
Nursing #40 #41 11.6% 6.2% 396 393
Psychology #58 #70 8.7% 5.0% 1k 1.1k
Social Sciences #59 #71 11.6% 4.7% 5k 6.1k

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.

Ghana

▲ 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. Epidemiology1,614▲ 1.30×136 topics
  2. Sustainability1,476▲ 1.93×109 topics
  3. Climate Change1,179▲ 1.39×111 topics
  4. Globalization1,054▲ 1.72×132 topics
  5. Environmental Impact932▲ 1.75×67 topics
  6. Renewable Energy815▲ 1.80×53 topics
  7. Sustainable Development808▲ 1.65×89 topics
  8. Education786▲ 1.46×101 topics
  9. Economic Growth786▲ 3.1×34 topics
  10. Social Capital700▲ 4.3×21 topics
  11. Public Health690▲ 1.52×65 topics
  12. Mental Health661▲ 1.48×43 topics
  13. Risk Management650▲ 4.4×18 topics
  14. Supply Chain Management597▲ 2.1×26 topics
  15. Maternal Mortality544▲ 7.8×5 topics
  16. Corporate Governance529▲ 2.3×27 topics
  17. Poverty Reduction517▲ 13×7 topics
  18. Consumer Behavior514▲ 2.6×18 topics
  19. Community Health Workers479▲ 17×2 topics
  20. Biodiversity Conservation456▲ 3.9×17 topics
  21. Health Inequalities456▲ 12×5 topics
  22. Urbanization456▲ 3.6×13 topics
  23. Child Development449▲ 3.5×8 topics
  24. Leadership447▲ 2.9×35 topics
  25. Socio-economic Factors435▲ 12×3 topics
  26. Child Mortality432▲ 19×1 topic
  27. Health Systems432▲ 19×1 topic
  28. Smallholder Farmers429▲ 6.5×6 topics
  29. Social Networks417▲ 4.9×13 topics
  30. Governance412▲ 4.0×15 topics
  31. Development397▲ 3.6×19 topics
  32. Sustainable Agriculture395▲ 4.1×15 topics
  33. Gender Inequality381▲ 8.8×6 topics
  34. Global Burden of Disease372▲ 4.8×4 topics
  35. Poverty Alleviation372▲ 12×3 topics
  36. Vulnerability370▲ 5.1×8 topics
  37. ICT305▲ 7.3×5 topics
  38. Maternal and Child Undernutrition305▲ 12×1 topic
  39. Water Sanitation Hygiene305▲ 12×1 topic
  40. Institutional Quality302▲ 9.2×3 topics

Kenya

▲ 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 Change1,810▲ 1.98×120 topics
  2. Sustainability1,751▲ 2.1×122 topics
  3. Epidemiology1,518◆ 1.13×136 topics
  4. Globalization1,252▲ 1.90×144 topics
  5. Supply Chain Management1,068▲ 3.5×25 topics
  6. Innovation1,016▲ 2.9×76 topics
  7. Poverty Reduction982▲ 22×6 topics
  8. Risk Management961▲ 6.0×17 topics
  9. Social Capital923▲ 5.3×20 topics
  10. Sustainable Development899▲ 1.71×96 topics
  11. Education894▲ 1.55×120 topics
  12. Economic Growth864▲ 3.1×32 topics
  13. Leadership820▲ 5.0×33 topics
  14. Corporate Governance798▲ 3.2×29 topics
  15. Development713▲ 5.9×20 topics
  16. Economic Development671▲ 2.5×50 topics
  17. Gender Equality655▲ 6.9×19 topics
  18. Sustainable Agriculture606▲ 5.8×16 topics
  19. Gender Inequality578▲ 12×7 topics
  20. Food Security577▲ 3.2×25 topics
  21. Smallholder Farmers569▲ 8.0×6 topics
  22. Social Networks560▲ 6.1×13 topics
  23. Community Health Workers555▲ 19×2 topics
  24. Rural Development550▲ 4.8×21 topics
  25. Adaptation547▲ 5.5×15 topics
  26. Maternal Mortality542▲ 7.2×5 topics
  27. Performance Measurement483▲ 5.4×7 topics
  28. Health Inequalities478▲ 12×5 topics
  29. Social Protection469▲ 31×2 topics
  30. Primary Education469▲ 35×2 topics
  31. Conditional Cash Transfers469▲ 39×1 topic
  32. School Subsidies469▲ 39×1 topic
  33. Socio-economic Factors463▲ 12×3 topics
  34. Child Mortality458▲ 19×1 topic
  35. Health Systems458▲ 19×1 topic
  36. Empowerment383▲ 12×6 topics
  37. Financial Constraints374▲ 11×2 topics
  38. Poverty Alleviation365▲ 11×3 topics
  39. Financial Inclusion365▲ 21×1 topic
  40. Microfinance365▲ 21×1 topic

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?

Kenya has out-published Ghana every year since 1980.

still counting5k10kKenya7,818 in 2025Ghana7,317 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 counting0.050%0.10%0.15%Kenya0.13% in 2025Ghana0.12% 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%Ghana11.1% in 2025Kenya6.3% 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.

Ghana 05 level0 Kenya
  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, Ghana or Kenya?

Kenya publishes 1.1× as much research as Ghana in 2022-now (29k against 27k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Ghana or Kenya?

10.8% of Ghana's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 5.7% for Kenya.

Is Ghana or Kenya growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +42% against 2018-21 for Ghana, and +28% for Kenya.

Which has more open access research, Ghana or Kenya?

70% of Kenya's research is free to read, against 65% of Ghana's.

Which has more world-class institutions, Ghana or Kenya?

Ghana holds 0 of the world's top 100 research institutions and Kenya 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%.

Ghana

  1. 1University of Ghana11.0% top 10% · 5.3k works
  2. 2University of Cape Coast12.8% top 10% · 2.8k works
  3. 3Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology10.8% top 10% · 4.5k works
  4. 4University for Development Studies11.1% top 10% · 1.9k works
  5. 5University of Education, Winneba8.0% top 10% · 1.4k works
  6. 6Takoradi Technical University13.8% top 10% · 404 works

Kenya

  1. 1Kenya Medical Research Institute12.2% top 10% · 708 works
  2. 2University of Nairobi4.8% top 10% · 3.1k works
  3. 3Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology3.7% top 10% · 2.4k works
  4. 4Moi University4.9% top 10% · 1.2k works
  5. 5Kisii University4.7% top 10% · 571 works
  6. 6Kenyatta University3.1% top 10% · 2.9k 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.

Ghana

  1. 1 Richard Gyan Aboagye #22,347 worldwide 39k citations · 250 works
  2. 2 Emmanuel Joel Aikins Abakah #27,882 worldwide 4.7k citations · 132 works
  3. 3 Martin Amogre Ayanore #33,207 worldwide 54k citations · 181 works
  4. 4 Robert Kokou Dowou #33,244 worldwide 25k citations · 109 works
  5. 5 Hubert Amu #37,771 worldwide 49k citations · 190 works

Kenya

  1. 1 Robert William Snow #6,135 worldwide 58k citations · 677 works
  2. 2 Edwine Barasa #13,107 worldwide 9.2k citations · 311 works
  3. 3 Kevin Marsh #18,105 worldwide 58k citations · 689 works
  4. 4 J. Anthony G. Scott #24,316 worldwide 21k citations · 396 works
  5. 5 Menale B. Kassie #24,373 worldwide 14k citations · 263 works