downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 60303.76articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Spain
Strongest usable evidence: Learning, at 76.6. Raise Building first, at 49.8. Experimentation needs more evidence: confidence is 0.33.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Building | 0.57 | 49.8 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 42.4 |
| Coordination | 0.39 | 91.1 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.42 | 44.6 |
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: Southern European comparison with strong infrastructure delivery and high unemployment.
Anticipation71.4Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Spain
Read Spain 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.
| Coordination | 0.39 | 3 of 5 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.50 | 5 of 7 | 0.85 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +6.3(2) | 61.0 | -10.4 | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | +4.4(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.42 | 3 of 6 | 0.92 | +5.2(2) | 48.0 | +3.4 | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | -6.7(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?
+6.3 over 10 years, from 65.1 in 2016 to 71.4 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
- 91.823index 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), 2023
1.5 % of GDP, rank 29 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), 2023
3,654 per million people, rank 28 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
29,986 per million people, rank 28 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 0.45
Panelist C's addition of the 2025 national blackout to the Valencia DANA warning failure is a second sign that anticipatory institutions do not reach operations, so I move from 65 to 62. The Presidency's foresight office, CSIC and INE remain durable institutions, which keeps me above C.
- 61.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
A national foresight office in the Presidency and Espana 2050 are real institutional foresight, which keeps me above C. The 2024 Valencia DANA warning failure at the last mile and the 2025 blackout, which C adds, show weak conversion of foresight into preparedness, so I trim one point.
- 60.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
A and B point to the Presidency foresight office and Espana 2050, which is the one institutional foresight item in the frame and I credit it, moving up from 57. The DANA flood and the long-foreseen housing and water stress show weak conversion into preparedness.
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
- 3.673per 1,000 aged 15-64
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 12.5days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 7count
- 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.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 7.4mean 1-10
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- 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.
Individuals using the internetWorld Bank (IT.NET.USER.ZS), 2024
95.8 % of population, rank 12 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), 2024
98.4 % aged 15+, rank 15 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), 2024
74.2 % of GDP, rank 31 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
- 0hours
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 108.024percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
- History
University-industry collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- 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
- 0.891index 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.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Customs clearance time for exportsWorld Bank (IC.CUS.DURS.EX), 2024
4.32 days, lower is better. Average number of days to clear direct exports through customs, as reported by manufacturing firms that export directly, in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys.
Days a manufacturer that exports directly says its goods took to clear customs, from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. It is the time the border took on firms' own shipments, current where the Doing Business border time this capability scores is frozen at 2019. It is not scored for two reasons. The number of firms behind each country's figure is published only in the survey microdata, and on a proxy from the published tables 37 of the 53 countries in the frame when it was checked clear 30 exporting firms; Mexico, the Philippines, Israel and nine others may not. And the question changed: surveys fielded from 2024 also ask how long release took across all border agencies, and drop an answer where customs alone took longer, so a country surveyed on both sides of the change can move severalfold with nothing at its border changing. India reads 17.3 days in 2022 and 2.5 in 2025, on more than 9,000 firms each time. No country in the frame has two surveys on the new questionnaire yet. Income is not why it is left out: it barely tracks log GDP per capita.
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.
Kit Digital SME digitalisation programme
Spain's Red.es Kit Digital programme used public grants, volunteer representatives and private digitalising agents to help small firms adopt software and online services; by 3 August 2026 the programme reported 1,566,846 transformation projects delivered by 10,727 agents, 96 percent of them ICT SMEs.
1,566,846 projects, digital transformation projects launched through kit digital, 2026-08-03. 10,727 agents, adhered digitalising agents, 2026-08-03. Red.es, Kit Digital public-private collaboration results, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Red.es standardised eligible solutions and payment rules, while private agents supplied implementation and volunteer representatives handled applications for firms that lacked administrative capacity. The public side made demand legible and portable; the private side supplied local skills and delivery capacity.
Limits: Projects and agents measure programme throughput, not whether the adopted tools raise productivity, remain in use or narrow the digital divide. The results page is a programme dashboard updated in 2026 and does not provide a counterfactual for firms that did not receive a grant. Projects can be delivered to the same beneficiary in multiple agreements, and agent counts include providers rather than unique firms served.
Doctorados Industriales (State Research Agency industrial doctorates)
Spain's State Research Agency funds four-year contracts for doctoral candidates employed in firms and other entities to write a thesis on an industrial research or experimental development project; in the 2024-2 call, resolved in October 2025, it awarded 65 grants worth 7.6 million euros.
65 grants, industrial doctorate grants awarded, call din 2024-2, 2025-10. 7,600,000 euros, funding awarded, call din 2024-2, 2025-10. Agencia Estatal de Investigación (State Research Agency), news release on the award resolution for Doctorados Industriales DIN 2024-2, 24 October 2025, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The state co-funds a firm's employment of a doctoral candidate for four years on condition that the thesis is built on the firm's own research or development project, tying a university doctoral programme to a company problem through one person.
Limits: The figure is one call's awards, not the stock of industrial doctorates in progress; The 2024 round was split into two calls and only the second is counted here, so the figure understates a year's awards. It is small next to France's Cifre. The release does not mention universities at all: the university side is implied by the doctoral thesis, not shown. It does not count the firms, and beneficiaries include 'other entities' as well as companies. Awards are funding decisions: the release does not say how many contracts were signed or theses completed. The start year (2014, the first call under the 2013-2016 State Plan) is not stated on the cited page. The release says funding doubled in 2024 and held in 2025, so the current scale is recent.
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
- 510days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.433% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.623scale 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.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 41% agreeing
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- one year
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.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 43.8% expressing trust
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- one year
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.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Confidence in the courtsJoint EVS/WVS (E069_17), 2022
12.8 % a great deal, higher is better. Share of survey respondents saying they have a great deal of confidence in the justice system and courts, of the four answers a great deal, quite a lot, not very much and none at all, in the Joint EVS/WVS 2017 to 2022 survey round.
Confidence in the courts is the public half of what this capability asks: whether people expect the rules to be enforced when a stranger breaks them. It is not scored because the survey answer reads two things the number cannot tell apart. Where courts are independent, confidence is a judgment of how they perform. Where they answer to the state, it is also deference, and saying otherwise to an interviewer has a cost. In this frame the pattern runs the wrong way. India, the Philippines and Indonesia, all electoral autocracies in the V-Dem 2025 classification, lead on the share saying a great deal, and Vietnam and China, the two closed autocracies surveyed, lead once quite a lot is counted too. The ten electoral autocracies average 21.8 percent saying a great deal and the two closed autocracies 28.1, against 13.6 for liberal and 8.4 for electoral democracies. Scored, it would rank highest the states whose courts are least able to rule against them. Income is not why it is left out: the share correlates about -0.18 with log GDP per capita. The value is the share saying a great deal; the share saying quite a lot is in the source note.
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
- 0.728index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 73.362% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
Adult learning participation
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- 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
- 1.377ratio 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
93.8 % gross, rank 11 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), 2022
4.6 % of GDP, rank 49 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), 2018
18.8 % of secondary, rank 41 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.
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.
Formación programada por las empresas (FUNDAE training credit)
Spain finances employer-organised training through rebates on firms' social security vocational-training contributions, managed by the state foundation FUNDAE. In 2024, 347,442 firms trained 3,378,343 workers, 22.7 percent of private-sector employees, across 5,824,016 participations.
22.7 % of private-sector employees, population coverage: workers trained in employer-programmed courses as a share of private-sector employees (epa annual average), 2024. 29.7 % of contributing firms, firms training their workers as a share of firms paying the vocational-training contribution (peak), 2014. Fundación Estatal para la Formación en el Empleo (FUNDAE), Balance de situación 2024 (data at 31 March 2025), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The state ring-fenced a payroll levy for vocational training and let every contributing firm reclaim it as a social security rebate for training it organises itself. A tripartite foundation, now FUNDAE, governed by government, employers and unions, verifies the training and publishes coverage.
Limits: The figures are FUNDAE's own administrative counts of training that firms report in order to claim rebates, so training that is not reported or not rebated is missing. The coverage rate divides people trained by the EPA private-sector employee count, which leaves out the self-employed, the public sector and the unemployed, so it is not the adult population share the gap asks for. The 22.7 percent and the 39.2 percent are different rates: 39.2 percent counts participations, and one person can count several times. The 22.7 and 3,378,343 values are read off an infographic page of the PDF, while the 5.8 million and 347,442 are in prose. Training is short, at 13.3 hours per participant in 2024 against 24 in 2014, and nothing shows skills gained. Reach across firms has eroded: 20.5 percent of eligible firms trained in 2024, against 29.7 percent (471,590 firms) in 2014, both on p.3 of the same Balance 2024 PDF. Micro firms cover 15.3 percent while large firms cover 91.8 percent, and firms used only 53 percent of their assigned credit. Worker participation rose while the firm base and training hours eroded, so the record is filed as eroded, with the 2014 firm-coverage peak as its second metric.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
-6.7 over 10 years, from 53.1 in 2016 to 46.4 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
-8.1 over 20 years, from 54.5 in 2006 to 46.4 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
- 1308per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 72620per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 12010per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 857273per 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.
Sandbox financiero (Ley 7/2020), and the fall in applications
Spain's Treasury ran a national financial regulatory sandbox under Law 7/2020 from 2021. Its first cohort drew 66 applications, 12 of which entered testing. By 2025 demand had fallen to two applications across the ninth and tenth cohorts, one of which received a favourable assessment, and the Government approved a draft law (Anteproyecto, 17 December 2024) that replaces closed cohorts with year-round intake and cuts pre-assessment to 45 working days.
2 applications, applications received in the 9th and 10th cohorts, 2025. 66 applications, applications received in the first cohort (peak), 2021. Secretaría General del Tesoro y Financiación Internacional (Ministry of Economy), Informe bienal del Sandbox financiero 2024-2025, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Treasury built a cohort-based sandbox in which the Bank of Spain, the securities regulator CNMV and the insurance supervisor DGSFP assessed and monitored tests under one statute, then fed the conclusions back into legislation. Demand collapsed once the first cohort's backlog cleared, and the Government answered with a draft law for year-round intake and a shorter pre-assessment.
Limits: Applications measure demand for the regime. They do not measure the regime's regulatory value, and the Treasury reports its own programme. The first cohort's surge was partly pent-up demand from the two-year legislative delay before Law 7/2020, so 66 is an unusual peak and not a steady state. Some of the later fall may reflect substitutes rather than lost capability: the EU DLT Pilot Regime, MiCA, the Bank of Spain's innovation hub and new Spanish sandboxes such as the AI pilot under RD 817/2023, Eco-Lab and the mobility sandbox. Spain opened further sandboxes (AI pilot, Eco-Lab, mobility) modelled on this one. The same report counts 117 applications over ten cohorts, four projects fully in the market and three legal changes traced to tests: Law 6/2023 on DLT securities and fund units, and RD 668/2023 on pension contributions. Read as one regime, the decline is real. Read as Spain's whole sandbox capacity, it overstates erosion. Every figure is a PDF read and there is no machine-readable series. The cohort chart in section 1.1 gives per-cohort counts only as unlabelled values, so the record uses the two figures stated in prose.
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
- 10.376% 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
- 32.1% 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
- 0.084index 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
- 5.84% 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
75 % aged 15+, rank 42 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
39.2 per 100 people, rank 16 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), 2024
8.3 % of output, rank 52 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
3.8 % of employment, rank 16 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.
Spain built Cl@ve as a common public-sector platform for identification, authentication and electronic signatures; the Spanish Tax Agency reported 20.867 million taxpayer identifiers enrolled in Cl@ve Móvil by 31 December 2024, including 12.323 million citizens active in the app.
20,867,000 identifiers, taxpayer identifiers enrolled in cl@ve móvil, 2024-12-31. 12,323,156 citizens, citizens active in the cl@ve app, 2024-12-31. Agencia Estatal de Administración Tributaria, 2024 annual report, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Spain created one public-sector identity layer that agencies could embed in their own procedures, then added a mobile channel while retaining other assurance routes. A central platform reduced repeated account creation and let a high-volume agency such as the Tax Agency test and scale the identity flow.
Limits: Enrollment and active-app counts show a reusable identity rail, not whether every public service is reachable, whether people without smartphones can use it or whether authentication is secure against all fraud. The Tax Agency reports its Cl@ve Móvil figures and counts taxpayer identifiers separately from citizens, so the two numbers must not be added into a population total. The platform is shared across the public administration, but the record does not isolate its causal effect on service completion.
La Palma volcanic-eruption recovery and monitoring
After the Cumbre Vieja eruption began on 19 September 2021, Spain coordinated a state–Canary Islands–island recovery commission; by February 2024 the state reported €929 million mobilised and 650 CO2 monitoring devices installed, allowing more than 220 families to return safely to homes in affected areas.
929,000,000 euros, state resources mobilised for la palma recovery, 2024-02. 650 devices, co2 monitoring devices installed in affected areas, 2024-02. Government of Spain, La Moncloa recovery commission report, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Spain created a mixed commission linking the central government, the autonomous region, island government and municipalities, then paired large-scale aid with a locally targeted monitoring system. The CO2 programme turned a continuing hazard into a measured re-entry protocol rather than treating the end of the eruption as the end of the emergency.
Limits: Mobilised resources and monitoring devices measure administrative response and a specific safety intervention, not the completeness of reconstruction, the speed and fairness of compensation or long-term livelihood recovery. The €929 million is a government total against its valuation of damage and includes different instruments over several years. The return of more than 220 families to monitored homes is an operational output, not proof that every affected zone was safe.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+4.4 over 10 years, from 39.9 in 2016 to 44.3 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
- 10.597% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 9.284% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2024. 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
- 66.522score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.234index
- 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, 2 records- 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), 2025
109,693 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 18 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.
Spain expanded high-speed rail from the first Madrid–Seville line in 1992 to more than 4,000 kilometres of high-speed track by 2024; the Transport Ministry reported that the service reached 70 percent of the population.
4,000 kilometres (more than), high-speed rail tracks, 2024. 70 % of population, population reached by high-speed trains, 2024. Government of Spain, Ministry of Transport statement to the 2024 International Transport Forum, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Spain treated high-speed rail as a long-horizon territorial network, retained a national infrastructure manager and sequenced corridors over multiple administrations. European funding, domestic engineering capacity and a common technical standard let each new line add value to a growing national system.
Limits: Track length and population reach show a sustained national build-out, not whether each corridor earns its operating cost, how much construction exceeded initial budgets or whether travel shifted from cars and planes. The ministry's statement uses a rounded lower bound for the network and a population denominator rather than land-area coverage. Lines and services opened over three decades under different governments, so the record is not a single-project causal test.
Castor underground gas storage, and its closure
Spain extinguished the Castor underground gas-storage concession in October 2014 after seismic events halted operation; the state transferred administration to Enagás and the decree recognised €1.350729 billion in compensation for the former concessionaire, with recovery structured over 30 years.
1,350,729,000 euros, compensation recognised for the extinguished castor concession, 2014. 30 years, recovery period authorised through the gas-system charge, 2014. Boletín Oficial del Estado, Royal Decree-Law 13/2014 and subsequent constitutional review, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: The state granted a private concession for strategic gas storage, then halted injection when induced seismicity made operation unacceptable and transferred administration to the system operator. The exit preserved the physical asset and safety responsibility but socialised a large compensation claim, showing how a rapid stop can still leave a long fiscal tail.
Limits: The compensation and recovery period show the fiscal and legal consequences of closing the facility, not the full construction cost, the number of earthquakes caused or the eventual cost of sealing the wells. The concession was extinguished and the facility placed in hibernation, with later court decisions changing parts of the payment mechanism. This is evidence of a project that could not be operated safely, not a claim that every underground storage project has the same risk.