Norway produces high-quality, internationally-networked research focussed on national specialisms and optimising the use of in-country capabilities.
Each axis scaled 0–100 vs the strongest Nordic performer. Norway leads on patent longevity but trails on translation and commercial base compared to the other Nordics.
The Norwegian ecosystem produced ~203,000 research papers and ~17,000 patent families over the last decade, from 899 paper-producing entities and 6,144 patent applicants in-country. Using consolidated biotech definitions, 25% of all Norwegian research relates to biotechnology.
Figure shows: Publication from the Norwegian ecosystem broken down by research discipline. Norway’s Research environment has primarily focused on computer science, medicine, psychology, environmental science, biology, geology and materials science from 2015-2025. Our definition of biotechnology covers to 25% of Norwegian research compared to Advanced Materials (22%) and AI (12%).
Figure shows: Biotech papers by category by year. Categories: Red (health), Blue (marine), Green (agri), White (industrial), Enabling (tools).
Figure shows: Norway is highly dependent on Oslo for its biotechnology output and infrastructure. Biotechnology publishing in Norway is dominated by pharmaceutical development, with each of the major institutions having contributions to industry, agritech and marine biotech.
Figure shows: The same institutions as the bar chart, placed at their home cities. Bubble area is proportional to biotechnology publications. Hover a bubble for the institution's share of national output and its split across the five themes. Institutions in the same city are nudged apart so that bubbles do not overlap, so positions are city-level and approximate. Scroll or pinch to zoom, drag to pan, and use the reset icon to return to the full view.
Figure shows: Strongest identified biotechnology collaborations by joint publications. Network shosw Norwegian institutes shown in pink and international institutes shown in green with collaboration strength indicated as line thickness.
Figure shows: Biotechnology researcher pool by year as identified by publication activity.
Figure shows: Modelled cost of supporting in-country bioscience community based on 2024 reporting of scientists in-country, GDP share allocated to R&D and established counts of biotechnology researchers in-country from publications in 2024.
Figure shows: Counts of biotechnology and life science active in the last 10 years from the Nordics using two methods of searching: Agentic search and affiliations identified from in-country patent outputs, benchmarked against previous reporting from Biotech Gate.
Figure shows: Total RCN funding awarded to biotechnology projects over 10 years. Size shows the number of grants awarded.
Figure shows: Journal H-index by biotech sub-sector across the Nordics. Bubble size reflects publication counts. Each of the Nordics demonstrates high density of Marine Biotech work at 100-200 H-index, with Norway showing the highest density.
Figure shows: Estimated TRLs for 5000 sampled papers from selected countries to benchmark against Norway according to the method set out here. Results from sampled datasets have been extrapolated to total number of biotechnology papers collected for each country demonstrating while distribution appears consistent, total number of publications allows for more opportunity to progress research through TRL stages.
Figure shows: Biotech patents by category by year. Categories: Red (health), Blue (marine), Green (agri), White (industrial), Enabling (tools).
Figure shows: shows stacked bar chart of biotechnology patents in Norway demonstrating Red biotech patenting representing 63% of patents published. The most active patenting institution in Norwegian biotech is Oslo University hospital which has appeared on the greatest share of patents (5%).
Figure shows: The same assignees as the bar chart, placed at their home city or head office. Bubble area is proportional to biotechnology patents. Hover a bubble for its share of patents and its split across the five themes. Assignees in the same city are nudged apart so that bubbles do not overlap, so positions are city-level and approximate; a dashed outline marks companies whose head-office location is less certain. Scroll or pinch to zoom, drag to pan, and use the reset icon to return to the full view.
Figure shows: Translation efficiency = (paper share) − (patent share). Positive means a theme over-translates into patents.
Figure shows: Probability a granted biotech patent remains active by years since grant. US maintenance-fee milestone payments at 3.5, 7.5, 11.5 years post-filing where Norway retains more after each milestone.
Figure shows: Counts and relative percentages of companies within the bio economy in Norway and the Nordics. These graphs are non-exhaustive (sampled from publicly available and provable data across each geography).
Deep-tech terminology for biotechnology, advanced materials and AI/ML was standardised from the OECD, BCG and the Stanford Emerging Tech Report. Biotechnology sub-classes (OECD, refined by dScience): Red (pharma, medical, diagnostics), Blue (marine), Green (agri-tech), White (industrial), Enabling Tech (genetic engineering, cell lines, bioinformatics).