The smartest countries in the world: ranking of the smartest countries

During the twentieth century, mankind was able to reach unprecedented heights in science, industrialization, and medical development. People created powerful engines, flew into space, and began to perform operations without incisions. All this makes us think about the question of which country is the smartest in the world.

It is quite difficult to make such a rating. There is no comprehensive assessment of the "intelligence" of the nation, as the British publisher Vouchercloud has thought about.

Rating criteria

The Vouchercloud portal has for the first time developed a methodology for calculating the ranking of the smartest countries. It is noted that it will be finalized in accordance with current trends. In order to compile the list, the following evaluation criteria were used:

• number of Nobel Prize winners from the state (past estimate);
• the population's achievements in science and education (future assessment);
• Average IQ (to assess current knowledge).

Проверка осуществлялась экспертами по всему миру, после чего Vouchercloud обнародовал рейтинг самых умных стран мира на 2024 год. В нем наглядно показано, каким образом производился расчет.

Number of Nobel Prize winners

The Nobel Prize is a prestigious award given annually for achievements in science, culture and art. The list of laureates is strictly accounted for. It is not the place of birth of a citizen that counts, but his or her citizenship, which is very important.

The electronic portal has counted the number of recipients for the entire period of the prestigious award.

The population's success in learning

To assess achievements in science and education, the degree of schoolchildren's learning and willingness to work for results were investigated. This allows us to find out what the prospects are for young citizens of the country to make scientific discoveries in the future.

The raw data used was the percentage of students with the highest score on the exam.

Average IQ level

Intelligence quotient is translated into Russian as "intelligence quotient," based on the ratio of mental age to biological age. The test, developed by psychologists, was an official attempt to assess the general intelligence of the population.

The IQ of mankind has been calculated for more than 100 years. It is done by the average of predetermined tests, which calculate how educated people are at different ages. The first study was conducted by researcher Richard Lynn, who published the book "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" in 2002.

The publisher conducted its own analysis of the data by country. The results were striking: the first five places are Asian countries. Singapore, China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan.

List of smartest countries

The rating was based on the average value of all three items. The result was as follows:

Place	Country	Nobel laureates, place	Advances in science and education, place	Average IQ, place
1	Japan	6	5	6
2	Switzerland	6	11	11
3	PRC	21	7	2
4	USA	1	13	28
5	Netherlands	11	24	8
6	Russia	8	6	32
7	Belgium	18	16	15
8	UK	2	30	17
9	Canada	8	34	8
10	Republic of Korea	46	2	4
11	Hong Kong	46	3	3
12	Germany	3	28	21
13	Taiwan	46	4	4
14	Austria	10	27	18
15	Finland	27	23	7
16	Hungary	21	14	24
17	Denmark	13	18	29
18	Australia	15	31	16
19	Norway	14	20	29
20	Sweden	5	39	22
21	Poland	15	21	34
22	Israel	15	15	41
23	Czech Republic	25	29	19
24	France	4	46	24
25	Singapore	73	1	1

Note that the table is stacked according to the places on the lists. For example, the number of scientists who received the Nobel Prize from different countries may be the same.

Map of Nobel laureates by country

The prize has been awarded since 1901. About 1,000 scientists, writers, and companies have received the honorary award. The maximum number of these went to the U.S., 325 copies. The map clearly shows how the prize was distributed by country and by part of the world.

Latin America and the Middle East had the fewest number of awards. Twenty-three were given to organizations, one to the Russian writer Ivan Bunin, who was in Paris at the time and had stateless status.

Top 10 smartest countries in the world

We present a detailed description of the "Smartest Countries" ranking by the example of the top 10 of the list.

Japan

One of the most high-tech countries in the world rightfully takes first place. The Japanese have won the prestigious international award 25 times. The main areas of research are physics and chemistry. The last prize went to Yoshinori Osumi in 2016 for the discovery of mechanisms of autophagy in medicine.

Japanese children study diligently, following the example of parents who stay late at work. This country has a special attitude to study and work. The IQ level of its citizens is very high.

Switzerland

The Swiss live in a developed country and know how to grow capital. An evaluation of the mental knowledge of the younger generation and mature citizens has shown that they are far more intelligent than the Austrians and Danes. Swiss citizens have received the Peace Prize three times. The last to receive recognition from the King of Sweden was chemist Jacques Dubochet. He developed the technique of cryoscopy, designed to determine the structure of molecules.

China

The IQ level in China is very high. By this indicator, the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire are second only to Singaporeans. Education in China is treated responsibly. Private schools are developing along with public educational institutions. The workload of children is huge, they focus on in-depth study of mathematics, foreign languages. Universities have a narrow focus.

Citizens who have received the prestigious Swedish Alfred Nobel Prize are 8. The most recent recipient of the honor in 2015 was Yuu Tu, who discovered new methods of combating malaria.

USA

If you look closely at the table, it is clear that the U.S. is not the leader in terms of IQ tests and prospects in science. This state has been actively accepting migrants throughout the 20th century, betting on their intellectual abilities. The term "brain drain" was first coined by the British during World War II, but processes have occurred before.

For example, Emilio Segre, who grew up in Italy, was forced to emigrate to the United States, where he discovered the antiproton and became a Nobel laureate. Similar stories were told by economists Vasily Leontiev, Simon Smith, and writer Isaac Singer, all of whom received the prize as US citizens. This country has the largest number of laureates in the world, 325 people.

Netherlands

Fifth place goes to the Netherlands, whose citizens have a fairly high rate of intelligence, ranking eighth in this indicator. Dutch children go to school early, at age 4-5, education is free until age 16.

The country is proud of its cultural heritage: the painters Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh, museums and art galleries in the cities. The Dutch are also proud of their scientists, physicists and chemists. The last Nobel laureate, Bernhard Fehring, designed molecular machines.

Russia

On the sixth line of the list was Russia. Among modern scientists the world contribution to science was made by five specialists. All of them are physicists (the year of the Nobel Prize is given in parentheses):

• Zhores Alferov (2000);
• Alexei Abrikosov (2003);
• Vitaly Ginzburg (2003);
• Konstantin Novoselov (2010);
• Andrew Geim (2010).

In the Russian Empire, two world-renowned doctors, immunologist Ilya Mechnikov and physiologist Ivan Pavlov, received the high honor. In the USSR, the award went to 15 citizens. Science was developing rapidly in the country. Efficiency was fueled by the government. During the military and scientific competition with the United States, the Soviet Union gave the world hundreds of discoveries.

The modern education system, according to international experts, needs to be reformed. 38,46% students received the highest mark in the exam, which is a good result.

Belgium

The country ranks in the top 15 in terms of intelligence quotient. The overall assessment score according to the Vouchercloud magazine study is 99.3. The Belgian students' assessment scores are not bad. 28,76% students get the highest marks in their exams.

Ten people with Belgian citizenship have won the Nobel Prize.

UK

Inferior in terms of present and future contributions to science, Great Britain gave humanity researchers in the sciences (J. Thomson, P. Mitchell), medicine (J. Vane, P. Nurse), literature (T. Eliot, B. Shaw, R. Kipling), all of whom received the prestigious Nobel Prize. The number of recipients is 113.

The educational factor in today's world does not give the country high marks. Although Britain's universities are included in lists of the most prestigious, innovation and new technologies come from the East today.

Canada

Canadians are well-educated, capable citizens, with an IQ of 100.4 per capita. Canada is a developed country where schooling meets world quality standards and is mandatory for all. Students did not perform well in the study, but past scores affected their place in the final rankings.

Canadian citizens have been awarded the prestigious Swedish Prize 11 times. Frederick Banting received it in 1923 for the discovery of insulin. It is noteworthy that the research was based on the work of Russian scientist L. Sobolev, which Banting was silent about.

Republic of Korea

South Korea excels in modern science, with an average IQ score of 104.6. 66,85% students received the highest test score, which corresponds to the second position in the world. South Korea was ahead of Singapore in the ranking.

The reason why the Republic did not rank among the top of the overall list of smart countries concerns an assessment of the past: representatives did not make great discoveries in science and medicine. The only Nobel Prize winner was President Kim Dae-jung, who strengthened relations with North Korea.

Conclusions

1. To assess which country has the smartest people, took the publication of the UK Vouchercloud. The calculation was made on the basis of three parameters: evaluation of the present (average IQ score), the past (the number of Nobel laureates from the country), the future (the percentage of students who scored the highest mark in the test).
2. The top five were Japan, Switzerland, China, the United States, and the Netherlands, with Russia in sixth place.
3. When the results were reported, it caused surprise. Until then, the East and the West had developed differently. Countries were not considered equal in terms of assessing intellectual ability. Today we can draw a clear conclusion: the future of science and medicine is in Asia. The smartest country is Japan.