Capability agenda
Generated 2026-10-03
The frame includes 125 countries. Each dimension is scored from 0 to 100, with no overall ranking, and each score shows its confidence beside it. Read the known limits of the data before you quote a score.
Open the profile: indicators, values, years and sources
| Dimension | Score | Confidence | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anticipation | 75.3 | 0.46 | +5.8 over 10 years using 2 indicators |
| Agency | 70.3 | 0.41 | no trend |
| Coordination | 91.4 | 0.39 | no trend |
| Trust | 86.2 | 0.30 | no trend |
| Learning | 82.0 | 0.55 | no trend |
| Experimentation | 25.4 | 0.25 | -2.7 over 10 years using 2 indicators |
| Adaptability | 60.4 | 0.62 | no trend |
| Building | 80.3 | 0.57 | +15 over 10 years using 3 indicators |
| Shared Purpose | 67.5 | 0.30 | +4.4 over 10 years using 2 indicators |
Score
Confidence
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
Select a dimension to see how Ireland’s comparable evidence has moved over time. The vertical scale is the current comparison frame, from 0 to 100.
Dimension
Period
Shared Purpose 1996 → 2026: 71.5 to 67.5 (-4) over 30 years using 2 indicators
Historical values use today’s frame from 0 to 100 and a matched basket of indicators. They show movement in the available evidence, not an overall development score. Dated agenda items appear on a separate timeline and do not change the score. A missing line means the evidence does not support a comparable trend for that dimension.
The evidence is too thin to manage these dimensions confidently.
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Venture deals, Firms through regulatory sandboxes, University spinouts.
Rejected datasets: Business share of R&D.
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Trust in public institutions, Court case clearance rate.
Rejected datasets: Rule of law, Control of corruption, Intentional homicide rate.
To what extent can people imagine themselves as participants in a common project?
Uses 2 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Sense of national belonging, Volunteering, Political polarisation.
Rejected datasets: Voice and accountability.
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: University-industry collaboration, Public-private collaboration.
Rejected datasets: Government effectiveness, Regulatory quality, Logistics performance.
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Adults doing digital tasks.
These dimensions score at least 50 with usable evidence.
| Dimension | Score | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Learning | 82.0 | 0.55 |
| Building | 80.3 | 0.57 |
| Anticipation | 75.3 | 0.46 |
| Adaptability | 60.4 | 0.62 |
18 requested indicators have no comparable dataset, and each one lowers confidence. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
| Dimension | Missing indicator | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| Anticipation | Government foresight capacity | Existence, mandate and continuity of a national strategic foresight function. |
| Anticipation | Long-horizon research commitments | New competitively awarded public research grants that run for five years or longer, as a share of all new competitive public research grants awarded in the year. |
| Agency | Adults doing digital tasks | Share of adults who carried out a named digital task in the last three months, such as sending a message with an attached file, moving a file between devices or using a spreadsheet formula, counted one task at a time and never as a skill level. |
| Coordination | University-industry collaboration | Intensity of research collaboration between universities and firms. |
| Coordination | Public-private collaboration | Frequency and scale of joint public-private delivery of national objectives. |
| Trust | Trust in public institutions | Confidence in national government, courts and civil service. |
| Trust | Court case clearance rate | Civil and commercial cases resolved in a year as a share of cases filed in the same year. |
| Learning | Adult learning participation | Share of adults in formal or non-formal education and training in the last 12 months. |
| Experimentation | Venture deals | First venture capital rounds closed by companies based in the country in the year, per million people, counted by deal and never by amount. |
| Experimentation | Firms through regulatory sandboxes | Firms admitted to, and firms completing, a regulatory sandbox or controlled trial regime in the year, per million people, summed across every regulator in the country. |
| Experimentation | University spinouts | Companies formed to commercialise university research, per million people. |
| Adaptability | Disaster preparedness and recovery | Demonstrated capacity to prepare for and recover from major shocks. |
| Adaptability | Institutional responsiveness | Speed at which rules and public programmes are changed in response to new conditions. |
| Building | Large project delivery | Cost and schedule performance of major public infrastructure projects. |
| Building | Firm scale-up rate | Share of young firms reaching significant employment or turnover thresholds. |
| Shared Purpose | Sense of national belonging | Reported identification with and attachment to the national community, as distinct from pride in the nation. |
| Shared Purpose | Volunteering | Share of adults who volunteered time to an organisation in the last month. |
| Shared Purpose | Political polarisation | Degree to which political differences run along a single hostile divide. |
These are documented institutional changes in Ireland that the framework records as evidence. They appear beside the score and do not change it or its confidence.
Ireland built MyGovID as a reusable online identity for welfare, tax, transport, education and childcare services; the 2025 Digital Decade country report records more than 2.7 million verified accounts in December 2024, close to 65% of adults.
Ireland's National Broadband Plan combined commercial investment with a state intervention contract for rural areas covering more than 560,000 premises; by October 2024 the government reported over 102,600 premises connected to the National Broadband Ireland network.
Ireland's HSE vaccination programme built a national booking, supply and reporting operation during COVID-19; by 21 July 2021 its dashboard recorded 5,344,686 administered doses, including 2,854,040 first doses.
Ireland created NAMA in response to the property and banking crisis, acquired distressed loans and worked them down through asset sales and development; by the end of 2023 it had generated €47.7 billion in cash and transferred more than €4.25 billion to the Exchequer while preparing an orderly wind-down.
Ireland's New Children's Hospital project saw its approved budget rise from €1.73 billion to €2.24 billion by February 2024 after an independent review recorded €450 million of earlier escalation and weaknesses in set-up, planning, execution and governance.
Ireland's national meteorological service uses a standard Yellow–Orange–Red warning system and briefs the National Emergency Coordination Group so government departments and agencies can coordinate ahead of severe weather; warnings are issued up to 48 hours before anticipated conditions.
Science Foundation Ireland funded a network of 16 university-based research centres from 2013, whose cumulative SFI investment of €684 million was matched by €638 million of industry commitment by 2021 (Annual Report 2021), and which by the end of 2022 had signed 1,426 collaborative research agreements with 688 companies, 366 of them in Ireland.
Ireland's Higher Education Authority has run Springboard+ since 2011, funding free or heavily subsidised higher education places for unemployed people, returners and employed adults, with over €400 million spent and over 110,000 people benefiting by 2025, when 7,719 places were offered on 249 courses at 37 institutions.
Fill a gap, file evidence or challenge an indicator at github.com/envisioning/national-capability-benchmark. The docs explain the method and decisions.