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Topic · Political Science and International Relations

Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies

Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies is a research topic within Political Science and International Relations. Science Explorer counts 10k research works in it since 1951. 10.1% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the global governance, security, and warfare in cyberspace, covering topics such as cyber security, internet governance, digital sovereignty, public-private partnerships, international law, information warfare, cyber deterrence, and state control. It delves into the complexities of attributing cyber attacks, the role of non-state actors, and the challenges of regulating and defending the digital domain.

  • Cyber Security
  • Internet Governance
  • Global Cybersecurity
  • Cyber Warfare
  • Digital Sovereignty
  • Public-Private Partnerships
  • International Law
  • Information Warfare
  • Cyber Deterrence
  • State Control
Research works
10k
fractional, since 1951
In the world top 10%
1k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+68%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
37% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies

Which countries lead Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies research?

By volume, the United States and the United Kingdom publish the most (849 and 298 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 849 works
  2. 2 United Kingdom 298 works
  3. 3 India 256 works
  4. 4 Germany 149 works
  5. 5 China 139 works
  6. 6 France 135 works
  7. 7 Indonesia 117 works
  8. 8 Russia 116 works
  9. 9 Ukraine 112 works
  10. 10 Australia 104 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.

United States: 37.3%United Kingdom: 13.1%India: 11.2%Germany: 6.5%6 others listed: 31.8%37%largest
United States849 · 37.3%United Kingdom298 · 13.1%India256 · 11.2%Germany149 · 6.5%6 others listed723 · 31.8%

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

Which institutions lead Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies research?

By volume in 2022-now, United States Department of Defense publishes the most Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies research, followed by University of Oxford and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States Department of DefenseUnited States 27 works
  2. 2 University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 24 works
  3. 3 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 22 works
  4. 4 Human Growth FoundationUnited States 21 works
  5. 5 King's College LondonUnited Kingdom 19 works
  6. 6 Institute for Peace Research and Security PolicyGermany 19 works
  7. 7 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 19 works
  8. 8 University of JohannesburgSouth Africa 16 works
  9. 9 Université Grenoble AlpesFrance 16 works
  10. 10 University of AmsterdamNetherlands 15 works

Who are the leading researchers in Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies include John P. A. Ioannidis, Rajkumar Buyya and Michael Berk.

  1. 1 John P. A. Ioannidis United States 317k citations
  2. 2 Rajkumar Buyya Australia 112k citations
  3. 3 Michael Berk Australia 110k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies?

The most cited paper in Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies is "Big other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization" (Shoshana Zuboff, 2015), with 2,962 citations. Next come "Stuxnet: Dissecting a Cyberwarfare Weapon" (1,910) and "Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion" (1,746).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Big other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization Shoshana Zuboff · Journal of Information Technology Mar 2015 2,962
2 Stuxnet: Dissecting a Cyberwarfare Weapon Ralph Langner · IEEE Security & Privacy May 2011 1,910
3 Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion Henry John Farrell, Abraham L. Newman · International Security Open access 2019 1,746
4 The Stability of a Unipolar World William C. Wohlforth · International Security Jul 1999 1,238
5 From information security to cyber security Rossouw von Solms, Johan van Niekerk · Computers & Security 29 Apr 2013 1,065
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies research done?

The largest centres of Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies research in 2022-now are London (United Kingdom), Washington D.C. (United States), Moscow (Russia) and New York (United States). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Tallinn.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 LondonUnited Kingdom 85 works
  2. 2 Washington D.C.United States 77 works
  3. 3 MoscowRussia 74 works
  4. 4 New YorkUnited States 58 works
  5. 5 KyivUkraine 55 works
  6. 6 ParisFrance 52 works
  7. 7 BeijingChina 38 works
  8. 8 BucharestRomania 35 works
  9. 9 WarsawPoland 34 works
  10. 10 BudapestHungary 29 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. TallinnEE · 20.3 works16×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies than the world average.

See Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies on the map

Where is the best place to study Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Amsterdam, Leiden University and University of Oxford score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 21.55%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University of Amster…Leiden UniversityUniversity of OxfordKing's College London
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.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of AmsterdamNetherlands 85.337.2%7.1×15 +75.8%
2Leiden UniversityNetherlands 73.826.4%7.3×14 +21.4%
3University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 72.318.6%4.8×24 -14.7%
4King's College LondonUnited Kingdom 71.018.6%6.4×20 +17.2%
5University of CopenhagenDenmark 64.425.9%2.9×10 +66.1%
6London School of Economics and Political ScienceUnited Kingdom 57.221.0%10.8×9 +67.8%
7University of JohannesburgSouth Africa 55.810.0%7.2×16 +296.4%
8University of BolognaItaly 55.829.0%3.1×9 +238.5%
9Georgetown UniversityUnited States 52.56.7%9.7×15 +98.4%
10Vrije Universiteit BrusselBelgium 51.422.1%8.0×8 +53.3%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies, country by country

Is Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 68% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies.

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 Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.014% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%0.030%Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies0.021% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies 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%Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies10.5% 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.

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