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Subfield · Computer Science

Software research

Software is a subfield of Computer Science. Science Explorer counts 99k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: non-tangible executable component of a computer.

Research works
99k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
9.8k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
5
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
-1%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
28% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Software

What is Software research about, and what is growing?

By the world's output in 2021-25, its most used keywords are Automated Testing, Software Fault Localization, Architecture-Based Approach, Software Reliability Modeling, Software Development, Domain-Specific Languages. Gaining share since 2011-15: Automated Testing, Software Fault Localization. Losing share: Domain-Specific Languages, Model-Driven Engineering, Software Development.

▲ gaining share of this field◆ holding its share▼ losing share

Size is the world's fractional works in 2021-25 in the topics tagged with each word; colour compares the word's share of this field with 2011-15. Each links to the topic it comes from most.

All 11 words, with their numbers
  1. Automated Testing6,952▲ 1.24×1 topic
  2. Software Fault Localization6,952▲ 1.24×1 topic
  3. Architecture-Based Approach6,361◆ 1.00×1 topic
  4. Software Reliability Modeling6,361◆ 1.00×1 topic
  5. Software Development3,516▼ 0.71×2 topics
  6. Domain-Specific Languages2,625▼ 0.64×1 topic
  7. Model-Driven Engineering2,625▼ 0.64×1 topic
  8. Information Systems891◆ 1.04×1 topic
  9. Modeling891◆ 1.04×1 topic
  10. End-User Software Engineering688◆ 1.10×1 topic
  11. Meta-design688◆ 1.10×1 topic

Which countries lead Software research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, China and Germany rank highest in Software. By volume, China and the United States publish the most (2.9k and 2.4k works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States #1 all time 1.05× citation excellence · 1.53× journals · 100% breadth 10.9% top 10% · 2.1k works
  2. 2 China #3 all time 1.09× citation excellence · 1.03× journals · 100% breadth 12.5% top 10% · 2.7k works
  3. 3 Germany #2 all time 0.91× citation excellence · 1.39× journals · 100% breadth 8.8% top 10% · 995 works
  4. 4 United Kingdom #4 all time 1.08× citation excellence · 1.44× journals · 100% breadth 11.3% top 10% · 491 works
  5. 5 Canada #5 all time 1.38× citation excellence · 1.20× journals · 100% breadth 14.2% top 10% · 400 works
  6. 6 Netherlands #10 all time 1.19× citation excellence · 1.45× journals · 100% breadth 9.8% top 10% · 217 works
  7. 7 Spain #6 all time 1.24× citation excellence · 0.99× journals · 100% breadth 11.8% top 10% · 274 works
  8. 8 Italy #13 all time 1.22× citation excellence · 0.67× journals · 100% breadth 12.6% top 10% · 406 works
  9. 9 India #17 all time 0.80× citation excellence · 0.45× journals · 100% breadth 5.6% top 10% · 1.1k works
  10. 10 France #9 all time 0.55× citation excellence · 1.25× journals · 100% breadth 5.4% top 10% · 363 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 12 countries ranked in Software. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Software

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 2.9k works
  2. 2 United States 2.4k works
  3. 3 India 1.2k works
  4. 4 Germany 1.1k works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 546 works
  6. 6 Italy 443 works
  7. 7 Canada 436 works
  8. 8 France 396 works
  9. 9 Japan 377 works
  10. 10 Brazil 342 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 28.4%United States: 23.9%India: 12.2%Germany: 10.6%6 others listed: 24.9%28%largest
China2,898 · 28.4%United States2,435 · 23.9%India1,244 · 12.2%Germany1,081 · 10.6%6 others listed2,541 · 24.9%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Software research?

Nanjing University (China) ranks first in Software on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Peking University and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 Nanjing University China · Nanjing · #6 all time 17.2% top 10% · 96 works
  2. 2 Peking University China · Beijing · #10 all time 21.2% top 10% · 62 works
  3. 3 Chinese Academy of Sciences China · Beijing · #19 all time 11.0% top 10% · 130 works
  4. 4 Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres Germany · Berlin · #24 all time 7.7% top 10% · 83 works
  5. 5 Beihang University China · Beijing · #46 all time 15.2% top 10% · 103 works
  6. 6 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique France · Paris · #18 all time 5.5% top 10% · 98 works
  7. 7 National University of Defense Technology China · Changsha 8.2% top 10% · 92 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 7 institutions above the floor of 40 fractional works in Software.

Top 100 Software institutions

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 140 works
  2. 2 Beihang UniversityChina 109 works
  3. 3 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 107 works
  4. 4 Nanjing UniversityChina 102 works
  5. 5 National University of Defense TechnologyChina 99 works
  6. 6 Helmholtz Association of German Research CentresGermany 91 works
  7. 7 Peking UniversityChina 66 works
  8. 8 Nanjing University of Aeronautics and AstronauticsChina 59 works
  9. 9 Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States 59 works
  10. 10 Technical University of MunichGermany 55 works

Who are the leading researchers in Software?

Counting only their work in Software, Mark Harman, Lionel Briand and David Lo have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Mark Harman United Kingdom · #10,640 worldwide overall 68.2 of 180 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Lionel Briand Luxembourg · #12,133 worldwide overall 57.5 of 139 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 David Lo Singapore · #10,678 worldwide overall 65.7 of 128 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Xin Xia Singapore · #3,448 worldwide overall 34.9 of 62 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Gregg Rothermel United States · #23,338 worldwide overall 39.3 of 88 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Mary Jean Harrold United States · #11,748 worldwide overall 35.8 of 78 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Lingming Zhang United States · #5,496 worldwide overall 31.7 of 48 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Andrea Arcuri Norway · #9,146 worldwide overall 33.9 of 68 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Tao Xie United States · #57,216 worldwide overall 41.0 of 116 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Michael D. Ernst United States · #19,816 worldwide overall 30.8 of 61 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Software alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 190,910 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 Software researchers

What are the most cited papers in Software?

The most cited paper in Software is "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" (Erich Gamma, Richard F. Helm, Ralph E. Johnson et al., 1994), with 21,853 citations. Next come "Primer3—new capabilities and interfaces" (10,027) and "Statecharts: a visual formalism for complex systems" (6,762).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software Erich Gamma, Richard F. Helm, Ralph E. Johnson et al. 1994 21,853
2 Primer3—new capabilities and interfaces Andreas Untergasser, Ioana Cutcutache, Triinu Kõressaar et al. · Nucleic Acids Research Open access 21 Jun 2012 10,027
3 Statecharts: a visual formalism for complex systems David Harel · Science of Computer Programming Open access Jun 1987 6,762
4 A theory of timed automata Rajeev Alur, David L. Dill · Theoretical Computer Science Open access Apr 1994 6,524
5 PEAR: a fast and accurate Illumina Paired-End reAd mergeR Jiajie Zhang, Kassian Kobert, Tomáš Flouri et al. · Bioinformatics Open access 18 Oct 2013 4,970
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Software research done?

The largest centres of Software research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Nanjing (China), Shanghai (China) and London (United Kingdom). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Västerås, Sharon and Lugano.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 739 works
  2. 2 NanjingChina 264 works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 229 works
  4. 4 LondonUnited Kingdom 164 works
  5. 5 MunichGermany 150 works
  6. 6 ChangshaChina 130 works
  7. 7 TokyoJapan 130 works
  8. 8 WuhanChina 117 works
  9. 9 Xi'anChina 116 works
  10. 10 MontrealCanada 115 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. VästeråsSE · 32.6 works46×
  2. SharonUS · 51.1 works32×
  3. LuganoCH · 32.3 works21×
  4. PassauDE · 23.1 works21×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Software than the world average.

See Software on the map

Software research by country

The best places for Software research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study Software?

Among universities, judged by research, Nanjing University, ETH Zurich and Peking University score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%mean 18.87%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →ETH ZurichPeking UniversityNanjing UniversityCarnegie Mellon Univ…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now
50%
Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
20%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
5%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
15%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
5%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
5%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreRank in field (all time)Top 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Nanjing UniversityChina 85.6#1 (#6)17.2%8.5×102 +81.8%
2ETH ZurichSwitzerland 76.3- (#2)23.2%3.0×28 +37.7%
3Peking UniversityChina 72.7#2 (#10)20.2%2.5×66 +48.0%
4Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States 69.9- (#3)16.1%10.7×59 -52.4%
5University of LuxembourgLuxembourg 61.8- (#9)18.7%16.3×51 -11.1%
6University of California, BerkeleyUnited States 59.5- (#5)22.2%1.6×20 -25.9%
7National University of SingaporeSingapore 58.5- (#11)16.5%2.6×41 +21.0%
8Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUnited States 56.8- (#7)20.2%2.1×19 -2.5%
9Stanford UniversityUnited States 55.6- (#4)14.1%0.7×14 -36.1%
10University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignUnited States 53.1- (#15)20.3%3.9×44 -12.8%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), citation excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in Software, country by country

Is Software research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 1% lower than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2014. The fastest-growing topics are Spreadsheets and End-User Computing and Software Testing and Debugging Techniques.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Software as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.067% in 2024.

still counting0.10%0.20%0.30%Software0.062% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Software over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Software9.9% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

  1. Spreadsheets and End-User Computing+15%
  2. Software Testing and Debugging Techniques+9%
  3. Model-Driven Software Engineering Techniques-5%
  4. Software Reliability and Analysis Research-6%
  5. Engineering and Information Technology-18%
← shrinkingno changegrowing →

Growth in output from 2018-21 to 2022-25. Every topic is a page of its own.

What does Software include?

Software Reliability and…34kSoftware Reliability and Analysis Research: 34k fractional worksSoftware Testing and Deb…32kSoftware Testing and Debugging Techniques: 32k fractional worksModel-Driven Software En…23kModel-Driven Software Engineering Techniques: 23k fractional worksEngineering and Information Technology: 5,274 fractional worksSpreadsheets and End-User Computing: 4,383 fractional works

Area is fractional works in that topic. Every name below is a page of its own.

Share who leads Software

Who leads Software, on Science Explorer

A card with the countries and institutions that lead Software, for a post or a slide.

Download the card

1200 × 630 PNG, sized for social posts, drawn from the latest snapshot.

The leading institutions' badges6Each links to that institution's page and updates with every snapshot

Questions people ask

Who leads software engineering research?

Nanjing University (China) ranks first in Software on research quality in 2022-now, followed by Peking University and Chinese Academy of Sciences. On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, China and Germany rank highest in Software. By volume, China and the United States publish the most (2.9k and 2.4k works in 2022-now).

All 1,273 questions in the Question Catalogue

Discussion

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