Soft Power, Science, and the Quiet Strength of a Small Nation
Share
Before we talk about soft power, here’s a set of numbers worth holding in your hands for a moment.
Estonia has produced 25,820 scientific articles.
Latvia: 12,918.
Lithuania: 33,446.
Now compare that with the world’s giants: China published 5.6 million articles, the United States 4.8 million. By sheer volume, the Baltics are barely visible — tiny sparks next to two continental bonfires.
But here is where the story tilts.
Global citation analysis shows that the countries with the highest scientific influence — the highest “scientific wealth” — are not the mega-producers. They are small and precise. Iceland leads the world with citation rates 88.8% above the global norm. Singapore follows at 83.9% above.
And then, unexpectedly, comes Estonia.
While China and the United States dominate in quantity, their impact rankings tell a different story. China’s average citation rate sits just 2.6% above the global standard — placing it 63rd. The United States reaches 39.6% above, ranking 23rd. High output does not guarantee high influence.
At the other end, countries like Kazakhstan (–20.7%) and Russia (–31.4%) demonstrate that scientific systems can be massive and still struggle to resonate globally.
And then there is Estonia — a scientific outlier hiding in plain sight.
According to analyses by Jüri Allik, Mart Saarma, and Anu Realo, Estonia’s research is cited 81.7% more than the global norm per article. That places us shoulder-to-shoulder with Iceland and Singapore, in the company of nations that have learned how to turn knowledge into global reach.
For a small country of 1.3 million, this is not normal.
It’s astonishing.
And it is the very essence of soft power.
Where This Leap Came From
One of the biggest reasons Estonia’s research has advanced so quickly is the influence of Finland and Sweden. For years, many Estonian scientists earned their doctorates there, joined collaborative research projects, or received training from Finnish and Swedish institutions. In the mid-2000s, those two countries felt far ahead of us: in 2007, Sweden ranked 11th in the world in scientific impact and Finland 13th. Estonia was 31st — respectable, but nowhere near the Nordic level.
But something remarkable happened over the following years. By 2025, Estonia not only caught up — it surpassed both Finland and Sweden. Estonia now ranks third in the world in scientific impact, while Sweden stands at 15th and Finland at 17th. For a small country that once looked north for inspiration, overtaking its scientific mentors is a stunning achievement.
A look inside Estonia’s research fields shows the same upward trajectory. Estonia outperforms the global average in 17 out of 22 major scientific areas. Our strongest fields — including clinical medicine, molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, neuroscience, and computer science — are cited at more than double the world average. These are the engines driving Estonia’s scientific success.
Only one field lags behind: economics and business, where Estonia’s citation rate is about 31% below the global standard. For comparison, Latvia appears in 17 major fields, and Lithuania is represented in all 22. The breadth of fields Estonia participates in is itself a marker of scientific strength.
A Legacy That Runs Deeper: Jüri Lotman
Estonia’s intellectual influence did not begin with modern science. It has deeper roots — especially in the humanities. The only scholar from our entire region to be recognized among the most cited humanities scholars of the 20th century was Jüri Lotman of the University of Tartu. His work in semiotics reshaped how the world understands culture, language, and meaning itself.
I hold enormous respect and admiration for Lotman — not only for the scale of his thinking, but for proving decades ago that Estonia could generate ideas powerful enough to travel across continents. His legacy reminds us that our current rise in scientific impact is not an anomaly. It is part of a much longer tradition of intellectual courage.
But Success Comes With a Responsibility
If Estonia wants this momentum to last, we must keep investing in the people who make it possible. At home, we know the truth: there isn’t much money for scientists or PhD students. We allocate only 1.8% of GDP to R&D. But the work is demanding, the hours are long, and the compensation is often symbolic. Yet the results — the global citations, the international recognition — come from these same people who choose to stay, research, publish, and push ideas forward.
If we want Estonia’s voice in science to grow louder, we need to value these minds accordingly. Not just with praise, but with support. Because the moment Estonia becomes a place where scientists feel seen, respected, and properly compensated, something extraordinary happens: talent begins to notice. Have you heard of Estonia? They’re doing world-class science. Suddenly, the world’s brightest students and researchers want to be part of that story — part of the ideas that are cited everywhere.
That is how a small nation becomes a magnet for global brains.
Science + Culture: The New Soft Power Equation
We tend to separate art and science, but soft power thrives when they work together. Culture makes people curious. Science makes people trust. Education bridges the two.
If you’re a small country, you need all three.
Estonia already has a strong cultural presence: music, design, architecture, digital identity, and a diaspora that quietly carries our story into the world. Add scientific impact on top of that, and suddenly you have a new national profile — one defined by competence, creativity, and intelligence.
This matters beyond statistics.
It shapes how the world sees us, how institutions engage with us, how students choose their study destinations, how companies choose partners, and how art and culture travel across borders.
Soft power built on science is subtle, but it’s deeply persuasive.
Why This Should Matter to All of Us
When we talk about “national influence,” most people imagine embassies or political leaders. But soft power lives in everyday life.
It lives in the scientist whose paper is cited in Singapore.
In the Estonian student invited to a lab in Boston.
In the artist who collaborates with a researcher to explore climate futures.
In the cultural projects that travel because people trust the ecosystem behind them.
Even if you never touch a research article or walk into a university building, this scientific strength touches your life. It affects how your country is seen, the opportunities available to your children, the doors that open when you introduce yourself abroad.
Soft power is not abstract. It is lived.
A Small Country With a Large Horizon
When I saw Estonia’s ranking — third in the world — I felt something shift. We are more powerful than we believe. Not in a political or military sense, but in the soft architecture of trust, knowledge, ideas, and culture.
That’s the kind of power that lasts.
That opens doors quietly.
That doesn’t need to be declared to be felt.
Science, culture, and education are here to stay. And small countries that understand that — truly understand it — end up with a voice far louder than their population would ever suggest.
Estonia is becoming one of them.
And that, perhaps, is the most meaningful kind of influence there is.