Science Explorer Back to mapMap
Compare · Countries

Iceland vs Uganda

On research quality in 2022-now, Uganda ranks #47 in the world and Iceland #50, of 189 countries. Iceland stands higher in 6 of the 15 fields both publish in, Uganda in 9.

Research profiles alike: 0.15somewhat alike shapes of research, whatever their size. How it is measured

Compare other countries
vs

Iceland

World rank, 2022-now
#50
#42 all time
Works, 2022-now
5.2k
fractional
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
46%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Chemical Health and Safety, Classics, Geophysics.

Uganda

World rank, 2022-now
#47
#49 all time
Works, 2022-now
13k
fractional
Top-10% rate
9.5%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
71%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Virology, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Infectious Diseases.

Who leads, measure by measure?

Uganda leads on 5 of 9 measures: research quality, excellence for its fields, output, open access and growth. Iceland leads on 3 of 9 measures: top-10% rate, citations per work and international co-authorship. The two are level on institutions in the world top 100.

Iceland 31 level5 Uganda
  1. #50Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#47
  2. 0.95×Excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected1.05×
  3. 5.2kOutputfractional works, 2022-now13k
  4. 10.0%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited9.5%
  5. 25.7Citations per workall time, per fractional work14.5
  6. 0World top 100institutions it holds among the world's best 1000
  7. 46%Open accessof its works free to read, all time71%
  8. 42%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time41%
  9. +11%Growthworks in 2022-25 against 2018-21; half a bar is no change+75%

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?

Iceland stands higher in 6 of 15 fields, Uganda in 9. Uganda leads most in Medicine (#35 against #40); Iceland leads most in Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (#37 against #58). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

Iceland 69 Uganda
  1. -Agricultural and Biological Sciences#46
  2. #40Arts and Humanities-
  3. #37Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology#58
  4. -Business, Management and Accounting#52
  5. #69Computer Science#66
  6. #34Earth and Planetary Sciences-
  7. -Economics, Econometrics and Finance#58
  8. #54Engineering#63
  9. #49Environmental Science#64
  10. -Health Professions#35
  11. -Immunology and Microbiology#31
  12. #40Medicine#35
  13. -Nursing#33
  14. #41Psychology#49
  15. #55Social Sciences#54

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 Iceland rankUganda rank Iceland top 10%Uganda top 10% Iceland worksUganda works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences - #46 - 10.4% - 1k
Arts and Humanities #40 - 12.6% - 249 -
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology #37 #58 12.4% 9.6% 228 384
Business, Management and Accounting - #52 - 7.9% - 793
Computer Science #69 #66 5.8% 9.8% 255 458
Earth and Planetary Sciences #34 - 11.0% - 221 -
Economics, Econometrics and Finance - #58 - 6.4% - 502
Engineering #54 #63 11.3% 11.9% 443 529
Environmental Science #49 #64 9.1% 7.4% 428 779
Health Professions - #35 - 11.5% - 683
Immunology and Microbiology - #31 - 12.1% - 293
Medicine #40 #35 11.3% 10.5% 971 3.7k
Nursing - #33 - 9.3% - 222
Psychology #41 #49 9.0% 8.7% 304 477
Social Sciences #55 #54 9.1% 8.0% 831 2.1k

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.

Iceland

▲ 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 Change398▲ 2.5×100 topics
  2. Epidemiology292▲ 1.23×130 topics
  3. Sustainability196▲ 1.35×88 topics
  4. Globalization185▲ 1.58×95 topics
  5. Mental Health156▲ 1.83×41 topics
  6. Inflammation143◆ 1.13×76 topics
  7. Remote Sensing110▲ 1.52×31 topics
  8. Environmental Impact109◆ 1.08×52 topics
  9. Public Health104▲ 1.20×59 topics
  10. Quality of Life97◆ 1.13×52 topics
  11. Cardiovascular Disease96▲ 1.41×37 topics
  12. Treatment93▲ 1.29×49 topics
  13. Risk Factors87▲ 1.33×36 topics
  14. Depression87▲ 1.66×22 topics
  15. Biodiversity78▲ 1.72×34 topics
  16. Literature72▲ 2.2×37 topics
  17. Meta-Analysis67▲ 1.92×18 topics
  18. Resilience67▲ 2.3×17 topics
  19. Invasive Species66▲ 2.6×20 topics
  20. Religion64▲ 2.3×29 topics
  21. Prevalence63▲ 2.6×14 topics
  22. Arctic62▲ 9.4×4 topics
  23. Fisheries Sustainability60▲ 12×2 topics
  24. Labor Market58▲ 3.5×14 topics
  25. Governance56▲ 2.9×16 topics
  26. Aquaculture51▲ 3.4×8 topics
  27. International Relations49▲ 3.4×17 topics
  28. Hydrology45▲ 5.8×4 topics
  29. Plate Tectonics44▲ 4.9×3 topics
  30. Medieval43▲ 21×3 topics
  31. Financial Crisis41▲ 6.2×12 topics
  32. Holocene40▲ 6.0×3 topics
  33. Freshwater Biodiversity36▲ 9.9×2 topics
  34. Shipping35▲ 12×2 topics
  35. Banking Sector34▲ 43×3 topics
  36. Iceland34▲ 138×1 topic
  37. Socioeconomic Inequality34▲ 69×1 topic
  38. Oil and Gas33▲ 16×2 topics
  39. Maritime Transport33▲ 21×1 topic
  40. Northern Sea Route33▲ 21×1 topic

Uganda

▲ 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. Epidemiology1,464▲ 2.4×135 topics
  2. Sustainability576▲ 1.52×105 topics
  3. Climate Change570▲ 1.35×104 topics
  4. Antiretroviral Therapy528▲ 21×6 topics
  5. Public Health472▲ 2.1×63 topics
  6. Globalization448▲ 1.47×113 topics
  7. Maternal Mortality443▲ 13×5 topics
  8. Vaccine430▲ 6.9×11 topics
  9. Immune Response417▲ 4.7×23 topics
  10. Risk Factors396▲ 2.3×37 topics
  11. Mental Health380▲ 1.71×45 topics
  12. Community Health Workers376▲ 27×2 topics
  13. Health Inequalities348▲ 18×5 topics
  14. Global Burden341▲ 4.0×12 topics
  15. Socio-economic Factors339▲ 20×3 topics
  16. Child Mortality336▲ 30×1 topic
  17. Health Systems336▲ 30×1 topic
  18. Diagnosis323▲ 2.2×40 topics
  19. Mortality Rates307▲ 21×2 topics
  20. Drug Resistance293▲ 6.5×9 topics
  21. HIV Transmission287▲ 24×2 topics
  22. Social Capital277▲ 3.4×19 topics
  23. Viral Load273▲ 23×2 topics
  24. Genetic Diversity272▲ 4.0×21 topics
  25. Poverty Reduction271▲ 13×6 topics
  26. Child Development268▲ 4.2×8 topics
  27. Pathogenesis263▲ 3.3×24 topics
  28. Preexposure Prophylaxis259▲ 34×1 topic
  29. Stigma and Discrimination259▲ 34×1 topic
  30. Vaccine Development259▲ 6.5×11 topics
  31. Global Burden of Disease229▲ 6.0×4 topics
  32. Smallholder Farmers196▲ 6.0×6 topics
  33. HIV Infection194▲ 12×4 topics
  34. Gender Inequality191▲ 8.9×6 topics
  35. Maternal and Child Undernutrition189▲ 15×1 topic
  36. Water Sanitation Hygiene189▲ 15×1 topic
  37. HIV Prevention179▲ 20×2 topics
  38. Global Health174▲ 7.2×8 topics
  39. HIV173▲ 13×4 topics
  40. Adolescent Health170▲ 13×3 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?

Uganda has out-published Iceland every year since 2000, when it overtook it.

still counting2k4k6kUganda4,088 in 2025Iceland1,335 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 counting0.025%0.050%0.075%Uganda0.069% in 2025Iceland0.023% 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 counting10%20%Iceland10.3% in 2025Uganda9.8% 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.

Iceland 14 level0 Uganda
  1. 0In the world top 500
  2. 0In the top 1000
  3. 0In the top 5000
  4. 1In the top 1,0001
  5. #42Elite capacityrank among 204 countries#44

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, Iceland or Uganda?

Uganda publishes 2.5× as much research as Iceland in 2022-now (13k against 5.2k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Iceland or Uganda?

10.0% of Iceland's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 9.5% for Uganda.

Is Iceland or Uganda growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +75% against 2018-21 for Uganda, and +11% for Iceland.

Which has more open access research, Iceland or Uganda?

71% of Uganda's research is free to read, against 46% of Iceland's.

Which has more world-class institutions, Iceland or Uganda?

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

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%.

Iceland

  1. 1University of Iceland10.7% top 10% · 2.7k works
  2. 2Reykjavík University13.8% top 10% · 690 works
  3. 3Directorate of Health4.1% top 10% · 610 works
  4. 4University of Akureyri7.6% top 10% · 236 works
  5. 5Matís (Iceland)3.4% top 10% · 84 works
  6. 6Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies8.9% top 10% · 70 works

Uganda

  1. 1Makerere University9.6% top 10% · 3.7k works
  2. 2Kampala International University12.9% top 10% · 1.4k works
  3. 3Mbarara University of Science and Technology9.8% top 10% · 741 works
  4. 4Kyambogo University6.5% top 10% · 574 works
  5. 5Gulu University9.0% top 10% · 426 works
  6. 6Kabale University8.8% top 10% · 337 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.

Iceland

  1. 1 Unnur Arna Thorsteinsdottir #13 worldwide 144k citations · 597 works
  2. 2 Kāri Stefánsson #43 worldwide 211k citations · 1,140 works
  3. 3 Augustine Kong #84 worldwide 97k citations · 293 works
  4. 4 Guðmar Þorleifsson #122 worldwide 120k citations · 579 works
  5. 5 Daniel Fannar Gudbjartsson #133 worldwide 88k citations · 524 works

Uganda

  1. 1 Mahadih Kyambade #22,796 worldwide 818 citations · 67 works
  2. 2 Afulah Namatovu #24,940 worldwide 658 citations · 49 works
  3. 3 Adoke Yeka #39,181 worldwide 5.6k citations · 116 works
  4. 4 Jimmy Opigo #56,186 worldwide 2.3k citations · 144 works
  5. 5 Moses Robert Kamya #68,808 worldwide 28k citations · 864 works