downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 7075.14articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
United Arab Emirates
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 74.9. Raise Building first, at 40.6. Trust needs more evidence: confidence is 0.16.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Building | 0.55 | 40.6 |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 48.3 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Trust | 0.16 | 47.9 |
| Coordination | 0.23 | 55.7 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.24 | 46.3 |
| Learning | 0.32 | 75.1 |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 18.0 |
| Agency | 0.35 | 68.0 |
These lists are the country's capability agenda, computed from the scores. Read the full agenda. It names comparable evidence from other countries and the 18 gaps in the registry.
Why this country is included: State-led diversification away from oil, executed quickly and from the top.
Anticipation48.3Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
United Arab Emirates
Read United Arab Emirates beside up to three other countries, down to the indicator behind every row.
- Usable or good evidence
- Thin evidence, hollow point. The dashes open further as confidence falls.
- The point still sits at the score, because confidence never moves it.
- Click any axis to see every country on that dimension.
A score from 0 to 100 is a position inside the frame that all the benchmark countries set: zero is the weakest on a dimension and 100 is the strongest. A score of 10 puts a country near the floor of that frame and does not mean 10 percent of a capability.
| Learning | 0.32 | 2 of 4 | 0.71 | no trend | 62.0 | -13.1 | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.35 | 3 of 5 | 0.61 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Coordination | 0.23 | 2 of 5 | 0.79 | no trend | 60.0 | +4.3 | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +35.7(2) | 60.0 | +11.7 | |
| Trust | 0.16 | 2 of 7 | 0.79 | no trend | 44.0 | -3.9 | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.24 | 2 of 6 | 0.75 | no trend | 33.0 | -13.3 | |
| Building | 0.55 | 4 of 6 | 0.88 | +6.7(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | +0.7(3) | no data | no estimate |
How to read this page
Each dimension has a score from 0 to 100. It shows where this country sits among all 125 countries in the comparison frame, not a percentage. Confidence sits beside the score. A dashed radar edge and hollow point mean the evidence is thin. The records below show each indicator, its raw value, year and source.
A panel estimate, when present, is a separate judgment about what the indicators miss. It does not change the score or confidence. The panel's provenance is shown beside the estimate.
- direct capability measuredirect capability measure Measures the thing itself.
- capability inputcapability input Measures something that supports the capability.
- downstream outcomedownstream outcome Measures a result that usually follows from the capability.
- perception proxyperception proxy Records what people or experts say, not what they did.
Confidence
- very thin0.00 to 0.25
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
- thin0.25 to 0.45
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
- usable0.45 to 0.65
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
- good0.65 and above
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
A row marked no dataset exists is a gap: the benchmark wants data that nobody publishes. A retired row has a source this project chose not to use. Both reduce confidence. The glossary defines each term, and the limits page lists where these numbers are known to be wrong about the world.
Anticipation
How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
+35.7 over 10 years, from 12.6 in 2016 to 48.3 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 79.15index 0-100
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL)
- History
Government foresight capacity
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable international dataset. OECD and UN work is descriptive, not scored. Envisioning would have to build this.
Long-horizon research commitments
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of new grants
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the share of R&D spending classed as basic research, which is the make-up of a spending stock, the construct D142 retired business R&D share for. OECD MSTI publishes that share for its members only, and UNESCO UIS no longer serves R&D by type of research (construct audit, 2026-10-02). The behaviour behind it is a funder committing to a horizon: a grant awarded for five years or more is a decision to wait for a result. Untried: no memo has triaged a grant register. National funders publish award lists one by one with their own durations, and commercial grant aggregators fail the inspectability rule. Wireable on a grant-level register with award and end dates, on one definition of a competitive public grant, for half the frame or more.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
R&D expenditureWorld Bank (GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS), 2021
1.5 % of GDP, rank 27 of 118. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: money committed to research is what a country spends, and spending it does not show the country reads the future well (D122).
Researchers in R&DWorld Bank (SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6), 2021
2,607 per million people, rank 34 of 114. Full-time-equivalent researchers per million people.
A condition, not scored: a standing stock of people who could investigate is what a country has, not a record of what they found (D122). Correlates with income but survives size normalization.
Secure internet serversWorld Bank (IT.NET.SECR.P6), 2024
4,192 per million people, rank 54 of 125. Servers using encryption in internet transactions, per million people.
A condition, not scored: a diffusion stock of digital adoption that money buys, not an act of anticipation (D122). Spans four orders of magnitude, so its rank is read on the published value and its correlations on the logged one.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 62.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold 62: the panel agrees the foresight machinery is real and institutionalised in ministries and foundations, and my discount for its dependence on the current executive is already priced in.
- 60.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Hold. The panel agrees the foresight machinery is real and the indicator score misses it; I stay at the low end because it is concentrated in a few executive offices and its durability without current leadership is untested, as panelist A noted.
- 58.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I come down slightly from 62: the foresight machinery is real but executive-centred, and panelist B is right that a wealth-funded showcase (museums, foundations) is partly bought. Strong statistical performance and diversification on long horizons still show conversion.
Agency
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 2.476per 1,000 aged 15-64
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 3.5days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 2count
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO)
- History
Adults doing digital tasks
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- ITU / UNESCO UIS (SDG 4.4.1, ICT skills by type)
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked whether adults can perform standard digital tasks, which reads a skill level, the kind of stock D122 moved out of the scores with internet users. It now counts the act: a person who did the task. It is not the internet users condition beside it, which counts access. Candidate: ITU ICT skills by type (SDG 4.4.1) through the UNESCO UIS API, probed 2026-10-02. Sent a message with an attached file reaches 33 of the 53 countries then in the frame, 25 at 2018 or later, with no United States, India or China and most of Africa and Central America missing; two other task items reach 31 and 16. The items are self-reported and the task list has changed between rounds. Wireable on one task observed for half the frame or more at 2018 or later.
Perceived control over life
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no datamean 1-10
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- History
- no data
Note: A perception: the publisher-weighted mean, on a 1 to 10 scale, of how much freedom of choice and control respondents feel they have over the way their life turns out, from the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. It observes the felt capacity to act, not action. The table prints the mean to one decimal and no top-box share, so the row stores the mean and ties are common. Fieldwork years differ by up to six years: the 37 countries emitted were surveyed between 2017 (eight, the US among them) and 2023 (India), and every value is stamped with the release year 2022. Response style on 10-point scales differs across cultures, and a closed autocracy can read high: Vietnam and Nicaragua sit near the top of the frame. Countries with separate EVS and WVS samples (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands) are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D127 and A15.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Individuals using the internetWorld Bank (IT.NET.USER.ZS), 2024
100 % of population, rank 1 of 125. Share of the population that used the internet in the last three months.
A condition, not scored: access to the basic tool of modern agency is what people have to act with, not a record of them acting (D122). Saturates near 95%, which compresses the top of the range.
Financial account ownershipWorld Bank (FX.OWN.TOTL.ZS), 2021
85.7 % aged 15+, rank 47 of 122. Adults with an account at a bank or mobile money provider.
A condition, not scored: holding an account is the precondition for almost any economic action, not the action (D122). Global Findex, published every three years.
Credit to the private sectorWorld Bank (FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), 2022
65.5 % of GDP, rank 38 of 124. Domestic credit provided to the private sector by financial corporations.
A condition, not scored: financial depth is a stock of money available to actors, not what they do with it (D122). High values can also signal a credit bubble, so more is not always better.
Coordination
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Government effectiveness
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_GE.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The WGI aggregate the opinions of experts and firms, and in this set the four WGI series correlate with each other between 0.93 and 0.98 while correlating with log GDP per capita at 0.91. That is one perception of national wealth counted in three dimensions. Cross-agency delivery records are the replacement and they are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Regulatory quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RQ.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. Same measurement as government effectiveness, filed under a different name, correlating with it above 0.93. See D23 and A4.
Logistics performance
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.OVRL.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The LPI is a survey of international freight forwarders, so it records how a country looks to global logistics firms. A small country with a small port scores low whatever its state can organise, which is artefact A9. Container throughput and border time are observable and stay. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 27hours
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
- History
Budget execution fidelity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no datapercentage points from approved budget
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
- History
- no data
Note: Observable alignment between an approved public plan and what government spent. The API covers 113 of 125 countries, with a latest year between 2016 and 2024. Values above and below 100 both indicate deviation, so the transform measures absolute distance from the approved budget rather than rewarding overspending. See D55.
University-industry collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Innovation Index
- History
- no data
Note: GII carries it, but the underlying item is a WEF executive opinion survey whose microdata is not inspectable. Excluded on principle 4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.273index 0-1
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2x_cspart)
- History
- one year
Public-private collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable dataset. PPP investment databases measure infrastructure finance, not collaboration capacity.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
UAE Pass, the shared digital identity layer
The UAE Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority reported that UAE Pass had 6.84 million registered users accessing more than 15,000 digital services from government and private-sector providers in 2023.
6,840,000 users, registered uae pass users, 2023. 15,000 services, digital services available through uae pass, 2023. UAE Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, Digital Enablers Report 2023, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: TDRA coordinated federal and emirate-level governments around one identity, signature and document layer, then allowed banks, telecoms and other private providers to connect to it. A shared authentication rail lets separate organisations reuse verified identity instead of each rebuilding onboarding.
Limits: Registered accounts and listed services do not show active use, completion rates, accessibility, privacy experience or whether a transaction became faster for residents. The figures are reported by the authority coordinating the platform, and provider totals combine government, semi-government and private services with different quality and accountability arrangements.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 61.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Panelist C is right that state-firm project delivery is organising around objectives, so I move one point, but the question asks about independent actors and the civil society row near the floor shows that most coordination runs through the state.
- 60.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Hold. Panelist C counts state and state-firm delivery as coordination, but the question asks about independent actors, and with civil society at the frame's low end almost all coordination is directed by the federal and emirate executives.
- 60.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I come down to 60 with A and B: fast borders and cross-emirate delivery are real, but civil society participation sits at 21.6 in the frame, so coordination runs through the state rather than among independent actors. My 66 over-weighted state-firm delivery.
Trust
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Rule of law
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RL.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite correlating with control of corruption above 0.95 and with log GDP per capita at 0.83. Court throughput and case clearance rates are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Control of corruption
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_CC.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite. It measures reputation for corruption, which is not the same thing as corruption, and it tracks income closely. Prosecution and audit records are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 445days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
Bribery incidence
downstream outcomemissing- Raw value
- no data% of firms
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
- no data
Note: Whether the rules hold where a firm meets the state as a stranger. Experience rather than reputation: the firm is asked whether it was itself asked, so it is not the perception composite D23 retired. World Bank Enterprise Surveys, which now run in high-income economies too. Respondent reticence is the known weakness: a firm may not report a request to a survey, so a low value can be a cautious answer. Held out as a check on income grounds under D60 and scored since D123.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.591scale 0-4 (never to always)
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp)
- History
- one year
Intentional homicide rate
downstream outcomeretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataper 100,000 people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)
- History
- no data
Note: Added 2026-08-26 by D23 as the observable replacement for two retired WGI perception composites, and retired 2026-08-27 by D44 when the diagnostic built in D42 measured what it was doing. It raised this dimension's correlation with log GDP per capita by 0.288, from 0.096 to 0.385, the largest single wealth contribution anywhere in the model. It was added to fix wealth contamination and it was the wealth contamination. The dataset is sound and the objection is to what it measures here: homicide is driven heavily by organised crime, a society can be physically safe while trusting very little, and across this country set the variation it carries is mostly income. Behavioural trust measures remain a gap.
Generalised interpersonal trust
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% agreeing
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- no data
Note: Share answering that most people can be trusted in the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. The adapter uses the publisher-weighted country results, emits only countries with one survey row, and holds countries with separate EVS and WVS samples until the respondent-level weights can be pooled reproducibly. See D57 and D64.
Trust in public institutions
perception proxyno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% expressing confidence
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD Trust Survey / WVS
- History
- no data
Note: The OECD survey covers members only. Mixing it with WVS items for India and South Africa would break comparability. The Joint EVS/WVS confidence battery (E069) reaches 37 countries from one release, and confidence in the courts (E069_17) is published beside Trust as a check under this id rather than scored: every item of the battery tested (courts, civil service, police, parliament and government) reads higher in the closed and electoral autocracies of the frame than in its democracies, which is deference as much as confidence (A13). The gap stays open for a measure that does not reward a court that cannot rule against the state. See D132.
Cooperation beyond the in-group
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% expressing trust
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- no data
Note: The distinction that makes this dimension worth measuring: whether trust reaches a person with no tie to the respondent. Generalised trust asks about "most people", which a respondent can fill with their own circle; this item names the stranger. China is the clearest case, high on most people and low on a person met for the first time. The value is the publisher-weighted share answering trust completely plus the share answering trust somewhat, the one sum of two printed columns the adapter stores, exact to about 0.1, over all respondents including don't know and no answer. EVS and WVS ask the same question on the same four-point scale; where one country has both samples, the WVS share is a median 2.2 points higher. Trust in people of another nationality (G007_36_B), which the row once also named, is left out because it reads attitudes to foreigners as much as trust. Fieldwork runs from 2017 to 2023 and every value carries the release year 2022. Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D140.
Court case clearance rate
downstream outcomeno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of incoming cases
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- CEPEJ / OECD / national court statistics
- History
- no data
Note: Whether a court finishes what it starts, counted from case records rather than asked in a survey. D23 named it as the observable replacement for the two retired WGI composites and it has stayed unfilled since. CEPEJ publishes it for Council of Europe members and OECD for its own members, so no single publisher reaches this country set, and a harmonised series needs the project second source adapter. See D57.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 44.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Fast commercial courts including DIFC and ADGM are a genuine institutional asset, but very low government compliance with courts and the kafala dependence panelist B describes mean cooperation is state-guaranteed rather than institution-constrained; I move one point down toward B.
- 44.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
I edge up slightly because the fast commercial and common-law courts are a real asset for cooperation among strangers of many nationalities, as A and C stressed. I stay below the indicator score because sponsor dependency and courts that do not bind the state make that cooperation state-guaranteed rather than social.
- 44.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Fast contract enforcement is a direct capability signal, but government court compliance is near the frame floor and survey trust in an autocracy reads deference. I drop from 50 to 44; the common-law free-zone courts serve a commercial niche, not the general population.
Learning
How effectively does the country acquire, distribute, and update knowledge?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.673index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
Firms offering formal training
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no data% of firms
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
- no data
Note: Enterprise Surveys reach middle-income countries and skip most high-income ones, so coverage here is deliberately uneven and the confidence score should show it.
Adult learning participation
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Eurostat / OECD PIAAC
- History
- no data
Note: The best available measure of continuous learning capacity, and it exists only for European and OECD members.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.795ratio to world average
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Tertiary enrolmentWorld Bank (SE.TER.ENRR), 2024
63.7 % gross, rank 49 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2021
3.9 % of GDP, rank 71 of 125. Government expenditure on education as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: public spending on education is a pure input, and learning is what the dimension asks about (D122).
Vocational share of secondaryWorld Bank (SE.SEC.ENRL.VO.ZS), 2017
1.6 % of secondary, rank 110 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
A condition, not scored: the share of secondary pupils on a vocational track describes how a school system is built, not what anyone learns in it, and higher is not unambiguously better (D141). It marks a route into skilled work that does not run through university. Learning reads research citation impact, firm training and the human capital index instead.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 60.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I hold 60: all three panelists agree the citation impact is imported through hired faculty and branch campuses, and knowledge held by a transient workforce does not reside in durable national organisations.
- 62.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Hold. The panel agrees citation impact is imported through hired faculty; HCI is moderate and firm training data are missing, so I discount the indicator score.
- 62.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I accept A and B's point that citation impact rests on hired researchers and branch campuses, which is an endowment purchase. I cut from 68 to 62 because the 2020 HCI is only mid-range and domestic capacity is thinner than the 87 citation row implies.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
+0.7 over 10 years, from 5.7 in 2016 to 6.4 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 69per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 8281per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 103per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 346514per million people
- Year
- 2026. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv)
- History
- no data
Venture deals
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD / national VC associations
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The id keeps its first name so evidence records, links and published files still resolve. The row asked for venture capital deployed as a share of GDP, a level of financial depth of the kind private credit is (D122). A count of first rounds counts attempts started with outside risk money, which is what this capability asks about, and a large round counts once. Candidates, none wireable: the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Financing scoreboard carried venture capital for 6 of the 16 countries the frame held on 2026-08-26, as amounts in national currency, latest year 2022, with Brazil, India, South Africa and Singapore absent (D21); national venture capital associations publish counts on their own definitions; commercial deal databases cover the world and are not inspectable (D10). Wireable on an inspectable deal count with one definition of a first round for half the frame or more. Read A1 before treating this dimension as measured.
Early-stage entrepreneurial activity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no data% aged 18-64
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
- History
- no data
Note: From the GEM Adult Population Survey, entered by hand because GEM has no open API. TEA counts every new business, so necessity self-employment scores the same as a funded startup, which is why Chile and Argentina sit above the United States here. Read it as how many people are trying, not as how much value the attempts create. GEM does not run every economy every year: Singapore last took part in 2014 and the recency term marks that value down hard.
Tolerance of entrepreneurial failure
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% not deterred
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, fear of failure rate)
- History
- no data
Note: Stored as 100 minus the published GEM fear of failure rate, so the direction matches the rest of the registry. GEM measures that rate among adults who already see good opportunities, not among all adults, so the denominator differs from the label. Attitudinal: bankruptcy law and time to discharge would be the observable substitute and are still worth wiring beside it.
Firms through regulatory sandboxes
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no datafirms per million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national regulators
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the number and breadth of live sandboxes, which is a policy stock: a regime can exist with nobody in it. It now counts what passes through: firms a regulator let test under relaxed rules, and firms that came out, authorised, withdrawn or failed. Regulators publish cohort lists and exit reports one by one. The evidence corpus holds 22 records against this row, most of them counts of firms admitted or exited, each on the definition and window of its own regulator, and no register assembles them on one definition (O1 triage sweep, 2026-10-01). A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build from those lists. Wireable on a register that counts admissions and completions on one definition for half the frame or more.
University spinouts
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national TTO associations
- History
- no data
Note: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.
Business share of R&D
capability inputretired, see notes- Raw value
- no data% of R&D
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD MSTI / RICYT
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-02. The only working source, OECD MSTI joined with RICYT for Latin America, covers 34 of the 53 countries then in the frame, but the row reads the make-up of a spending stock: who performs the R&D a country pays for. R&D spending itself is a condition since D122, and the share is high both where business research is large (Israel) and where total research is tiny and one firm dominates it (Thailand). State enterprises count as business, so China and Vietnam read their ownership model. UIS stopped publishing the series in 2023. Firms trying new things are read through patents, trademarks, designs and entrepreneurship instead. See D142.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
ADGM RegLab, the first fintech sandbox in the region
The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market opened its RegLab fintech sandbox to applications on 2 November 2016 and by August 2019 had admitted 32 firms from 83 applications from 20 countries, of which two had graduated to the live market.
32 firms, fintech firms admitted to the adgm reglab since may 2017, 2019-08-25. 2 firms, reglab firms graduated and deployed into the marketplace, 2019-08-25. Abu Dhabi Global Market, Financial Services Regulatory Authority, announcement of the fourth RegLab cohort, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The FSRA wrote a separate, time-limited authorisation category into its rulebook that let fintech firms test with real customers under tailored limits for up to two years, then admitted them in cohorts and moved the successful ones to full licences.
Limits: The count is the regulator announcing its own programme in a press release, and it dates from August 2019: no later cumulative total was found at an ADGM URL, so the record says nothing about the sandbox's size today. ADGM is a financial free zone in Abu Dhabi with its own regulator, so this is one jurisdiction's sandbox, not a federal regime. The UAE government portal (https://u.ae/en/about-the-uae/digital-uae/regulatory-framework/regulatory-sandboxes-in-the-uae) lists at least five others, including the federal RegLab launched in January 2019 with the Dubai Future Foundation and the DFSA's Innovation Testing Licence, and no official count of firms across all of them exists. Admissions measure regulatory openness, not whether tested products reached customers safely: two graduates out of 32 admitted by 2019 is a thin outcome, and the release does not say how many firms left without a licence.
Adaptability
How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.174% of labour force
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 43.8% of unemployed
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
- History
- one year
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.292index 0-1, lower = more diversified
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 6.88% of products not exported competitively at the start
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ))
- History
- one year
Disaster preparedness and recovery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- INFORM / UNDRR
- History
- no data
Note: No source observes a country preparing for or recovering from a real shock. INFORM publishes its lack of coping capacity apart from hazard and exposure, but that dimension averages government self-assessments and governance perception indices with stocks such as roads, phones and physicians, which is the perception layer D23 retired plus conditions money buys (D122). Sendai and WHO reporting are governments grading themselves. A warning-reach survey item is a check candidate. See the disaster preparedness memo.
Institutional responsiveness
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No dataset exists. Measurable in principle from legislative and regulatory timestamps, which no one has assembled comparably.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Labour force participationWorld Bank (SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS), 2025
79.6 % aged 15+, rank 17 of 125. Share of the working-age population in the labour force.
A condition, not scored: how much of the population is in the labor force at all is what a country has to reallocate, a level set by norms, schooling and age, not a record of it reallocating (D141). Participation norms confound it, especially for India. Adaptability reads reallocation through long-term unemployment and export diversification instead.
Fixed broadband subscriptionsWorld Bank (IT.NET.BBND.P2), 2024
40.8 per 100 people, rank 14 of 125. Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
A condition, not scored: installed infrastructure is what a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D122). Penalizes mobile-first countries such as India and South Africa.
Electricity transmission lossesWorld Bank (EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS), 2023
4.3 % of output, rank 13 of 117. Power lost in transmission and distribution, including unbilled use.
A condition, not scored: the state of the grid, and whether its operator can bill what it delivers, is infrastructure a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D141). Read it beside broadband, the other installed network beside Adaptability.
Informal employmentILOSTAT (DF_SDG_0831_SEX_ECO_RT), 2025
4 % of employment, rank 18 of 102. Informal employment as a share of total employment, SDG indicator 8.3.1.
A condition, not scored: how much work carries no contract, registration or social protection describes the labor market a country reallocates through, not it reallocating (D150). Read it beside the unemployment rate: where most work is informal, a person who loses a job takes any work within weeks, so a low rate is not a fluid market. Its direction for Adaptability cannot be defended, since informal work is both the slack that absorbs a shock and the precarity that keeps a worker from moving up, so the rank orders values and is not a verdict. Comparability is weak: the European values come from an income survey (EU-SILC) with a proxy definition, and the rest from labor force or household surveys processed by the ILO. ILOSTAT has no value for the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, China, the Philippines or Cuba, and some values are old (Haiti and Nicaragua 2012).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
National COVID-19 vaccination campaign
The UAE's health authorities ran a national COVID-19 vaccination campaign from late 2020 that WHO records as having given at least one dose to 9,991,089 people, a first-dose coverage of 100 per 100 people on WHO's capped measure, and 24,922,054 doses in total by 6 July 2022.
9,991,089 people, persons vaccinated with at least one covid-19 vaccine dose, 2022-07-06. 24,922,054 doses, total covid-19 vaccine doses administered, 2022-07-06. World Health Organization, COVID-19 vaccination data (country-reported), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: Federal and emirate health authorities registered vaccines early, supplied them free to citizens and residents through public and private clinics, drive-throughs and mass centres, and tied access to daily life to vaccination status through the AlHosn app.
Limits: The figures are the UAE's own reports to WHO, not an independent count, and the last update is July 2022. The per-100 share is capped at 100 by WHO and the UAE's population denominator is unusually uncertain because most residents are foreign nationals on visas, so a 100 percent first-dose coverage claim cannot be taken literally; the absolute counts are safer, and they may include doses given to short-stay visitors. The start-date evidence is the Abu Dhabi emirate's media office describing its own emirate, which also says vaccines reached frontline workers from September 2020, so 2020 is the start of use, not of a public national campaign on a fixed date; the federal health ministry's site did not open from here. Coverage is an output of a shock response. It does not show deaths averted, cold-chain performance, equity across nationalities and labour camps, or preparedness for the next shock.
Targeted Economic Support Scheme (TESS)
The Central Bank of the UAE launched the Targeted Economic Support Scheme in March 2020, combining a zero-cost liquidity facility with loan deferrals and capital relief, and by 24 September 2020 more than 300,000 individuals, close to 10,000 SMEs and more than 1,500 private corporates had benefited from the facility.
300,000 individuals (more than), individuals who benefited from the tess zero-cost liquidity facility, 2020-09-24. 10,000 SMEs (close to), smes that benefited from the tess zero-cost liquidity facility, 2020-09-24. Central Bank of the UAE, press release 'CBUAE Governor reviews TESS Program and Systemic Stability with Banks CEO's' (24 September 2020), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The central bank lent to banks at zero cost against collateral and relaxed capital and liquidity buffers on condition that they defer repayments for affected borrowers, so relief reached households and firms through existing bank relationships.
Limits: The figures are a central bank press release about its own scheme, rounded ('more than', 'close to'), with no breakdown of amounts or of who would have received relief anyway. The March 2020 start, the extension the following month and the run to 30 June 2022 are stated in the central bank's UAE MSMEs Business Survey Report 2020 (page 10, https://centralbank.ae/media/rtdlng34/cbuae-msme-survey-report-2020-en.pdf), not in this release, and the central bank's web pages sit behind a bot check while its PDFs open. Benefiting from a liquidity facility means a bank passed on a deferral or cheaper credit; it does not show firms or jobs saved. Banks surveyed in that report counted 7,751 MSME customers helped by TESS in 2020, a different measure from this one.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+6.7 over 10 years, from 14.1 in 2016 to 20.8 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 9.374% of GDP
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 8.96% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS)
- History
Logistics infrastructure quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.INFR.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. An LPI sub-index, so the same freight-forwarder survey as logistics performance and the same problem. Electricity connection speed stays as the observable infrastructure measure in this dimension. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 100score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.839index
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD)
- History
Large project delivery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no data% overrun
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: The single best measure of execution capability and there is no comparable international dataset. Assembling one is a defensible Envisioning project. Building mixes industrial output with state delivery capacity, and this indicator carries the delivery side: the other six indicators cannot see a national programme that was delivered. Documented deliveries are recorded in data/evidence and never scored, see D20.
Firm scale-up rate
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of firms
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD DynEmp
- History
- no data
Note: OECD business dynamics work covers members irregularly. Nothing comparable for India, Brazil or South Africa.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Output per workerWorld Bank (SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD), 2024
108,203 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 19 of 123. GDP per person employed, constant purchasing power parity.
A condition, not scored: output per worker is income per worker, the wealth the benchmark tests capability against, so it is published beside Building as context (D122).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
The UAE, through the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation and under licences from the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation issued from 2010, built four APR-1400 reactors at Barakah that ENEC reported in September 2024 were all in commercial operation and providing up to 25 percent of the UAE's electricity; Unit 1 entered commercial operation on 6 April 2021, about four years after the 2017 date the regulator recorded in its 2012 construction licence review.
25 % of UAE electricity (up to, as reported), share of uae electricity supplied by barakah, all four units operating, 2024. 4 years (about), unit 1 commercial operation delay against the 2012 licensing plan (computed: april 2021 against a planned 2017), 2021. Abu Dhabi Government Media Office, release on Barakah Unit 4 commercial operation (statement of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The UAE federal government set a nuclear policy in 2008, created an independent regulator (FANR) and a single owner-developer (ENEC), and bought a proven reactor design with a turnkey contract, so the state managed one prime contractor against one reference plant rather than a first-of-a-kind design.
Limits: The 25 percent is the operator reporting on itself, relayed by the Abu Dhabi government's media office, and it is phrased as "up to": it is a capacity claim, not a measured share of national generation in a given year, and no statistical series was opened to confirm it. The schedule figure is computed by us from two documents, a 2012 regulator statement that the first unit was planned for 2017 and the 2021 commercial-operation release; it is a slip of roughly four years for Unit 1 only, and the later units' original dates were not found at an official URL. The plant's construction cost, and any cost overrun, are not published in any source opened, so the cost half of the construct is missing. The reactors were designed and built by a KEPCO-led Korean consortium on the Shin-Kori 3 and 4 reference design, so the UAE's institutional contribution is commissioning, licensing, financing and operating, not engineering. ENEC is an Abu Dhabi entity and the plant sits in one emirate, though it supplies the national grid under federal regulation. The operator's own boast of "a 40 per cent improvement in schedule" from Unit 1 to Unit 4 measures operational readiness to commercial operation, not construction, and is not used here.