For a country often celebrated for its composers, digital statecraft and quietly radical governance, Estonia has now achieved something even more improbable; according to a new analysis of global citation data, this nation of 1.3 million has become the world’s third most scientifically wealthy country, surpassed only by Iceland and Singapore – and far ahead of its Nordic mentors, Finland and Sweden.

Scientific wealth, a concept introduced by Baron May of Oxford nearly three decades ago, measures not the quantity of research a country produces but the average number of citations per scientific paper – a proxy for how profoundly its ideas shape global knowledge. By that yardstick, Estonia’s rise borders on the extraordinary.

Twenty years ago, Estonian science lagged 20% behind the world average. Today, Estonian-authored articles are cited 81.7% more than the global benchmark. In the clinical sciences, molecular biology, neuroscience, biochemistry and computer science, Estonian researchers now publish work cited at more than double the world average.

“It’s nothing short of a global miracle,” says Jüri Allik, professor of experimental psychology at the University of Tartu and one of the three authors of the study. “If someone wants to know what Estonia has accomplished beyond Arvo Pärt and our conductors, I would say this: our scientists.”

The post-Soviet paradox

If the findings sound improbable, the starting point makes them more so. When Estonia regained independence in 1991, its scientific base looked much like that of Latvia and Lithuania: underfunded, structurally compromised and largely isolated from international scholarship. Soviet-era science – with pockets of brilliance but chronically low impact – had left its successor states deeply behind the global frontier.

By 2006, Estonia remained 20% below the global citation average. But something had begun to shift. By 2014, Estonia caught up. Over the following decade, it surged ahead with a pace unmatched anywhere in the world.

Latvia and Lithuania improved, but nowhere near as dramatically. In the new global ranking of 96 countries, Latvia sits at 41st and Lithuania at 69th. Estonia is third.

What explains the Estonian leap?

The authors – Allik, Mart Saarma (President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences) and Anu Realo (University of Warwick and Tallinn University) – sifted through four major explanations:
science policy, funding, foreign aid and the research ethos of scientists themselves.

None alone fully explains Estonia’s ascent. Together, they sketch the contours of a story that is at once improbable and characteristically Estonian.

1. Bold science policy that broke with the past

Perhaps the most radical decision Estonia made after independence was to require doctoral dissertations to consist of articles published in internationally indexed journals. This forced young researchers to enter global competition, submit to anonymous peer review and aim high – immediately.

At the same time, the Estonian Science Foundation, created as an independent body and evaluated entirely by foreign experts, trained the country’s researchers to compete for international grants. All applications were required to be in English – a controversial choice then, an obvious one now.

Estonia also invited the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to evaluate its entire scientific system as early as 1992. The assessment provided not just legitimacy but a psychological reset: Estonian science belonged to the world again.

2. Funding: modest, but wisely structured

The paradox of Estonian science is that it thrives without the financial muscle of its Nordic neighbours. Estonia spends just 1.8% of GDP on R&D – less than the EU average, and far below Sweden or Finland.

Yet Estonia invests proportionally more into basic research, and its salary system, though modest, is flexible enough to reward competitive grant-winners. More importantly, researchers had to build excellence, not infrastructure. “It is neither wealth nor equipment that explains Estonia’s rise,” the authors note.

3. Foreign aid and scientific diasporas

Finland and Sweden played a crucial role. Many of the leading Estonian scientists of today trained in Nordic laboratories or collaborated on cross-border projects. International donors provided equipment, computers, reagents – the invisible lifeblood of good research.

Estonia also benefited from a network of globally renowned émigré scientists – astronomers, psychologists, anthropologists – whose careers abroad became models for a new generation.

4. A transformed research ethos

Perhaps the most powerful force was cultural. Estonian scientists simply changed the rules of the game.

The Soviet habit of publishing locally – in low-impact journals – faded. Researchers began obsessively tracking citation indices, journal impact factors, potential collaborators and emerging trends. They chose ambitious topics. They reached for Nature and Science first, not last. When rejected, they aimed for the next-best journal, but never the bottom.

“World-class science cannot be done in isolation,” Allik says. “And Estonia deserves world-class science.”

The numbers behind the miracle

Over the past 11 years, Estonian researchers published 25,820 papers included in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI). They received 792,400 citations – an average of 30.7 per paper.

For comparison:

Global average: 16.9 citations

Latvia: 19.9

Lithuania: 16.5

Finland: 24.6

Sweden: 25.9

Estonia also excels in breakthrough science. 2.74% of Estonian papers rank among the top 1% most cited globally – again, the third-highest share in the world.

Between 2014 and 2024, Estonian researchers authored 131 papers in Nature and Science – more than Latvia and Lithuania combined.

And yet, despite all this, the authors conclude that Estonia’s success cannot be credited to any single reform or stroke of luck. Instead, it appears to be the product of a virtuous cycle – a positive feedback loop where every success reinforced the next.

“Somewhere, there is a winning combination,” Allik says. “But we haven’t identified it yet.”

A national asset waiting to be exported

If Estonia is now one of the world’s most impactful scientific nations, the implications go far beyond academic prestige. Allik believes Estonia should treat its scientific excellence as an exportable product – specifically, through world-class, research-driven higher education.

“A good university education must be research-based,” he argues. “And Estonian science is among the most influential in the world. That makes our university education potentially one of the highest-value products we can offer.”

The foundations already exist: Estonia’s leading research groups are international, collaborative and globally integrated. What remains is to scale that outward-facing ambition.

Because if the past thirty years reveal anything, it is this: Estonia has not merely caught up with its scientific role models. It has overtaken them – and, in the process, redrawn the map of global scientific influence.

Source: estonian world