Science Explorer Back to mapMap
Compare · Countries

Iran vs Uganda

On research quality in 2022-now, Iran ranks #45 in the world and Uganda #47, of 189 countries. Iran stands higher in 18 of the 26 fields both publish in, Uganda in 8.

Research profiles alike: -0.10different shapes of research, whatever their size. How it is measured

Compare other countries
vs

Iran

World rank, 2022-now
#45
#43 all time
Works, 2022-now
268k
fractional
Top-10% rate
9.4%
share of its work among the world's most cited
Open access
46%
of its works free to read

Strongest relative focus: Research and Theory, Molecular Medicine, Filtration and Separation.

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 4 of 9 measures: excellence for its fields, open access, international co-authorship and growth. Iran leads on 2 of 9 measures: research quality and output. The two are level on top-10% rate, citations per work and institutions in the world top 100.

Iran 23 level4 Uganda
  1. #45Research qualityworld rank of 189 countries, 2022-now#47
  2. 0.85×Excellence for its fieldsits top-10% rate against what its topics predict; 1.00× is as expected1.05×
  3. 268kOutputfractional works, 2022-now13k
  4. 9.4%Top-10% rateshare of its works among the world's most cited9.5%
  5. 14.5Citations 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. 13%Internationalof its works written with co-authors abroad, all time41%
  9. -17%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?

Iran stands higher in 18 of 26 fields, Uganda in 8. Iran leads most in Engineering (#22 against #63); Uganda leads most in Immunology and Microbiology (#31 against #54). Each bar is that side's standing among all countries ranked in the field: the full bar is first place.

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 Iran rankUganda rank Iran top 10%Uganda top 10% Iran worksUganda works
Agricultural and Biological Sciences #45 #46 10.7% 10.4% 15k 1k
Arts and Humanities #69 - 10.5% - 3.2k -
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology #55 #58 8.4% 9.6% 17k 384
Business, Management and Accounting #57 #52 8.8% 7.9% 5.3k 793
Chemical Engineering #26 - 7.9% - 1.5k -
Chemistry #30 - 10.5% - 7.9k -
Computer Science #36 #66 11.6% 9.8% 13k 458
Decision Sciences #47 - 9.6% - 2.7k -
Dentistry #36 - 8.7% - 3k -
Earth and Planetary Sciences #38 - 10.1% - 2.6k -
Economics, Econometrics and Finance #71 #58 7.1% 6.4% 3k 502
Energy #11 - 10.3% - 3.8k -
Engineering #22 #63 11.2% 11.9% 49k 529
Environmental Science #33 #64 9.9% 7.4% 13k 779
Health Professions #47 #35 10.7% 11.5% 7k 683
Immunology and Microbiology #54 #31 8.3% 12.1% 3.5k 293
Materials Science #36 - 9.1% - 14k -
Mathematics #45 - 7.8% - 4.1k -
Medicine #67 #35 8.2% 10.5% 60k 3.7k
Neuroscience #42 - 7.1% - 4.9k -
Nursing #47 #33 9.2% 9.3% 2.4k 222
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics #27 - 10.3% - 1.6k -
Physics and Astronomy #41 - 7.5% - 4.9k -
Psychology #60 #49 7.2% 8.7% 12k 477
Social Sciences #76 #54 8.1% 8.0% 13k 2.1k
Veterinary #25 - 8.1% - 437 -

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.

Iran

▲ 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. Epidemiology15k▲ 1.26×139 topics
  2. Inflammation9,380▲ 1.50×83 topics
  3. Machine Learning7,841▼ 0.80×97 topics
  4. Biomedical Applications7,578▲ 2.2×36 topics
  5. Nanoparticles7,578▲ 2.0×44 topics
  6. Oxidative Stress7,558▲ 1.56×63 topics
  7. Quality of Life7,073▲ 1.66×61 topics
  8. Cancer6,841▲ 1.73×59 topics
  9. Deep Learning6,820▼ 0.67×85 topics
  10. Mental Health6,664▲ 1.58×48 topics
  11. Depression6,460▲ 2.5×26 topics
  12. Climate Change6,426▼ 0.80×128 topics
  13. Nanomaterials6,398▲ 2.1×21 topics
  14. Cardiovascular Disease5,268▲ 1.57×39 topics
  15. Environmental Impact5,204◆ 1.04×73 topics
  16. Antioxidant5,082▲ 2.5×51 topics
  17. Renewable Energy5,075▲ 1.19×61 topics
  18. Drug Delivery4,938▲ 3.1×16 topics
  19. Nanocomposites4,905▲ 2.1×22 topics
  20. Mechanical Properties4,612▲ 1.60×39 topics
  21. Tissue Engineering4,586▲ 2.6×13 topics
  22. Graphene4,490▲ 2.3×12 topics
  23. COVID-194,287◆ 1.12×34 topics
  24. Social Support4,224▲ 2.7×20 topics
  25. Metabolic Syndrome4,106▲ 1.72×24 topics
  26. Treatment3,983◆ 1.11×52 topics
  27. Catalysis3,957▲ 2.0×29 topics
  28. Pandemic3,667▲ 1.26×14 topics
  29. Stress3,476▲ 3.2×11 topics
  30. Toxicity3,284▲ 2.6×20 topics
  31. Obesity3,279▲ 1.45×29 topics
  32. Self-Efficacy3,248▲ 4.2×11 topics
  33. Antioxidant Activity3,120▲ 1.70×32 topics
  34. Cancer Therapy3,095▲ 1.85×20 topics
  35. Anxiety2,756▲ 1.97×12 topics
  36. Carbon Nanotubes2,542▲ 2.6×9 topics
  37. Elderly2,301▲ 3.2×8 topics
  38. Nursing2,113▲ 3.8×8 topics
  39. Educational Achievement1,862▲ 11×1 topic
  40. Job Stress1,862▲ 11×1 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?

Iran has out-published Uganda every year since 1980.

still counting50k100kIran69k in 2025Uganda4,088 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 counting1.0%2.0%Iran1.2% in 2025Uganda0.069% 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%Iran9.9% 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.

Iran 04 level1 Uganda
  1. 0In the world top 500
  2. 0In the top 1000
  3. 0In the top 5000
  4. 1In the top 1,0001
  5. #45Elite 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, Iran or Uganda?

Iran publishes 20.8× as much research as Uganda in 2022-now (268k against 13k fractional works).

Whose research has more impact, Iran or Uganda?

9.5% of Uganda's research reaches the world's top 10% most cited, against 9.4% for Iran.

Is Iran or Uganda growing faster?

Output in 2022-25 was +75% against 2018-21 for Uganda, and -17% for Iran.

Which has more open access research, Iran or Uganda?

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

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

Iran 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%.

Iran

  1. 1University of Tehran11.7% top 10% · 12k works
  2. 2Sharif University of Technology11.0% top 10% · 4.2k works
  3. 3Tarbiat Modares University10.3% top 10% · 6k works
  4. 4Shahid Beheshti University9.6% top 10% · 4.9k works
  5. 5Iran University of Science and Technology13.9% top 10% · 5.6k works
  6. 6Amirkabir University of Technology11.7% top 10% · 5.2k 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.

Iran

  1. 1 Ali Derakhshan #555 worldwide 12k citations · 318 works
  2. 2 Jalal Arabloo #591 worldwide 173k citations · 286 works
  3. 3 Sadaf Ghajarieh Sepanlou #1,137 worldwide 282k citations · 280 works
  4. 4 Mortaza Aghbashlo #1,278 worldwide 27k citations · 380 works
  5. 5 Nima Jafari Navimipour #1,362 worldwide 14k citations · 246 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