downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 82770.89articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Italy
Strongest usable evidence: Anticipation, at 74.1. Experimentation needs more evidence: confidence is 0.33.
Raise, lowest first
No low-scoring dimension has usable evidence.
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 61.5 |
| Coordination | 0.39 | 87.7 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.42 | 51.5 |
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: Added in the 9.0.0 completion, which takes every country of a million people or more that is measurable in all nine capabilities.
Anticipation74.1Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Italy
Read Italy 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 | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +6.9(2) | 61.0 | -13.1 | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | +7.4(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | +2.6(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.50 | 5 of 7 | 0.85 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.42 | 3 of 6 | 0.92 | +2.0(2) | 46.0 | -5.5 |
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?
+6.9 over 10 years, from 67.2 in 2016 to 74.1 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
- 90.931index 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
1.4 % of GDP, rank 32 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
2,855 per million people, rank 30 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
30,647 per million people, rank 27 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 0.60
Hold: ISTAT, the research base and the civil protection department are durable institutions, but frequent government turnover and a short administrative planning horizon leave demographic decline and hydrogeological risk handled reactively. The panel is aligned.
- 60.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
Strong statistics, research and civil protection, but demographic decline, hydrogeological risk and pension pressure have been foreseen for decades with slow response. The panel agrees; I hold.
- 61.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Strong statistics and a working civil protection system, but demographic, pension and hydrogeological pressures foreseen for decades got slow response. The three of us agree on 60 to 62.
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
- 3.089per 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
- 11days
- 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
- 7.1mean 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
89.2 % of population, rank 45 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
86 % aged 15+, rank 46 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
60.3 % of GDP, rank 41 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
- 112.375percentage 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
- 0.882index 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
5.174 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.
Dottorati innovativi con le imprese (PNRR M4C2 investment 3.3), XXXVIII cycle
Italy's Ministry of University and Research funded 1,708 company co-financed innovative doctoral scholarships in the 38th doctoral cycle (academic year 2022/2023), against the 5,000 that decree 352/2022 had allocated for that year, and cut the measure's target from 15,000 scholarships and 450 million euros to 6,000 scholarships and 360 million euros.
1,708 doctoral scholarships, scholarships assigned ('borse assegnate'), xxxviii cycle, summed over tabella a of d.d. 1424/2024, 2022/2023 academic year. 5,000 doctoral scholarships, scholarships planned for 2022/2023 by d.m. 352 of 9 april 2022 (allocation, not delivery), 2022. Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca, Decreto Direttoriale n. 1424 del 26 settembre 2024 (rideterminazione, XXXVIII ciclo, ex D.D. 2153/2022), as archived by the Internet Archive, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The ministry offered universities EU recovery money for doctoral scholarships on condition that a company co-financed each one and hosted the candidate, then cut the target and raised the public share when firms took up far fewer places than planned.
Limits: The 1,708 is our sum of the 'Borse assegnate' column over 533 rows of Tabella A (PDF pages 3 to 21), which prints no total; it agrees with the decree's Article 2 total of 85,400,000 euros at 50,000 euros a scholarship. mur.gov.it refused script requests, so the cited copy is the Internet Archive's. The 15,000 target, the 450 million euro original allocation and its redetermination to 360 million euros are in the decree's preamble; the 6,000 figure is on the ministry's measure page (archived 13 June 2026, https://web.archive.org/web/20260613095831/https://www.mur.gov.it/it/pnrr/misure-e-componenti/m4c2/investimento-33-introduzione-di-dott-innovativi-che), not in this decree. The 5,000 allocated by decree 352/2022 covered the 2022/2023 year across courses accredited under both the XXXVII and XXXVIII cycle rules; we read all of them as XXXVIII cycle scholarships, which the decree does not state in so many words. A scholarship counts as assigned when funded, not when the doctorate is completed, and firm co-financing is a condition of the measure rather than a separately counted payment. The shortfall against the 5,000 and the cut in the target are a plan that was not met, not a loss from a delivered peak, so the record is not classed as a reversal: it shows that far fewer firms co-funded than the ministry budgeted for, and the decree's response was to raise the ministry's unit contribution from 30,000 to up to 60,000 euros per scholarship (capped at 20,000 euros extra for this cycle), which shifts cost from firms to the state. Later cycles (decree 117/2023) are not counted here, and the measure ended with the recovery plan in 2026.
SPID, the public digital identity issued by accredited private providers
Italy's Agency for Digital Italy runs SPID, the public digital identity system in which accredited identity providers, private firms such as Aruba, InfoCert, Namirial and Register alongside state-controlled Poste Italiane and public companies such as Lepida and InfoCamere, issue the credentials under agreements with the agency, and by 8 October 2025 41 million SPID identities had been issued, when the agency extended the providers' agreements to 2027.
41,000,000 identities, spid digital identities issued, 2025-10-08. 55,000,000 cards, electronic identity cards (cie) issued, the state-only alternative (of which 9 million cie credentials activated), 2025-10-08. Agenzia per l'Italia Digitale (AgID), SPID, rinnovate le convenzioni con gli Identity Provider fino al 2027 (news, 8 October 2025), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The digital agency set technical rules and signed agreements with accredited identity providers, who verify citizens and issue credentials that every public administration must accept, so private firms carried the cost of enrolment while the state set the standard.
Limits: The 41 million is a rounded figure in a news item, not a statistics series, and counts identities issued, not active users; one person can hold SPID from more than one provider, so the count overstates people. The mix of providers is read from the agency's list of accredited identity providers (https://www.agid.gov.it/it/piattaforme/spid/identity-provider-accreditati), which shows the first accreditations in December 2015, the first agreements in February 2016, an additional act signed with each active provider on 8 October 2025, and one provider (In.Te.S.A.) that ceased in April 2023; the agency publishes no split of identities by provider, so the private share of issuance is not known, and the largest provider, Poste Italiane, is state-controlled. The future of the partnership is uncertain: the news item frames the extension as accompanying a transition toward a single national identity built on the state-issued CIE and the IT Wallet. If the government moves logins to CIE the partnership will shrink; this record does not count that as erosion because the item reports no loss yet. The item gives no transaction figure, so the record shows reach, not use. The 55 million CIE in the second metric are cards issued; the same item says only 9 million CIE digital credentials had been activated, so the two counts in the item's 96 million total are not like for like.
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
- 1120days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.606% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.8scale 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
- 26.6% 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
- 26.4% 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
5.5 % 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
- 42.333% 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
- 1.582ratio 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), 2023
76 % gross, rank 34 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
4.1 % of GDP, rank 65 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
33.1 % of secondary, rank 15 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.
Italy's Fondo nuove competenze, set up in 2020 and run by the national labour policy agency ANPAL through two notices, was created to pay for working hours employers turned into training under union agreements, and by the end of 2021 it had covered almost 30 million hours of training for almost 270,000 workers, about 110 hours each.
270,000 workers, workers trained under the first notice of the fondo nuove competenze, per anpal's thematic review of 30 december 2021, 2021-12. 30 million hours, working hours converted to training, 2021-12. ANPAL, Agenzia Nazionale Politiche Attive del Lavoro (archive maintained by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: ANPAL paid employers for working hours converted into training, but only where a collective agreement with the unions set out the cut in hours and the skills plan, which turned a COVID income measure into a negotiated training programme.
Limits: The figures come from ANPAL's own thematic review of December 2021, an interim count for the first notice; the final total for that edition is not on this page, and larger figures circulating elsewhere were not verified. The page is an archive: ANPAL was abolished and the fund passed to the Ministry of Labour, and the page says further funding is planned under the Programma nazionale Giovani, donne e lavoro. About 270,000 workers is under one percent of Italian adults (our rough computation), so this is a national programme that barely moves the participation share the indicator asks for. It is a wage subsidy as much as a training programme: the fund reimburses hours employers took out of production, and in 2020 to 2021 that also kept people employed during COVID restrictions. Training content and hours are certified by employers and union agreements, and ANPAL notes that the regions assessing training plans relied widely on tacit approval (silenzio-assenso), so quality control was light.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
+7.4 over 10 years, from 69.3 in 2016 to 76.7 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
- 10281per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 108275per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 26386per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 539628per 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.
Italy's FinTech regulatory sandbox, and its contraction
Italy's FinTech sandbox, run by the Bank of Italy, Consob and IVASS under the MEF's FinTech Committee, admitted 16 projects from its first application window (November 2021 to January 2022) but only 3 from its second (November to December 2023), after applications fell by about 80.7 percent.
3 projects admitted, projects admitted to the sandbox from the second application window (2 by ivass, 1 by the bank of italy, 0 by consob), 2024. 16 projects admitted, projects admitted from the first application window, the peak (13 by the bank of italy, 3 by ivass), 2022. Ministry of Economy and Finance (Department of the Treasury), Relazione sulle attivita del Comitato FinTech 2023-2024, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The MEF's FinTech Committee opened timed application windows in which each supervisor admitted projects to tests of six months, extendable to at most 18 months, with tailored conditions, and demand fell once operators learned how heavy admission was and found lighter informal channels at the Bank of Italy.
Limits: The counts are projects, not firms: the IVASS projects in the second window involved several firms each (for example ITAS Mutua with ANIA, Autovia and Connexa InsTech), while the one Bank of Italy project was a single FinTech operator, so the indicator's firms-per-million figure would need a firm count the report does not give. Per million people the sandbox admitted roughly 0.27 projects from the first window and 0.05 from the second; those ratios are our computation with a population the source does not state. The sandbox runs in windows rather than continuously, so the two numbers are two cohorts, not two years. The MEF attributes the fall to an admission process that operators and the supervisors themselves found burdensome and to the Bank of Italy's informal channels (Canale Fintech, Milano Hub) absorbing demand, so part of the decline is innovation dialogue moving outside the sandbox, which the indicator would not see. The Bank of Italy's sandbox page shows both cohorts as concluded and lists no window after 2023 as of retrieval; a new window or a redesigned regime would change the status. The report is the MEF reporting on a regime it chairs, and the MEF itself judges the sandbox experience 'soddisfacente' while calling for procedural simplification.
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
- 6.391% 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
- 52.8% 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
- 0.071index 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
- 3.39% 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
66.6 % aged 15+, rank 83 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
31.8 per 100 people, rank 35 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
7.1 % of output, rank 41 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
8.4 % of employment, rank 25 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.
Cassa integrazione con causale Covid-19, 2020
Italy's Cura Italia decree of 17 March 2020 created wage supplementation with a Covid-19 cause across ordinary CIG, the solidarity funds and CIG in deroga, and INPS recorded 5.27 million beneficiaries in April 2020 and 2.8 billion authorised hours from March to August, but about 83 percent of firms asked INPS to pay workers directly and the institute's own report records the resulting delay in payments for the first period.
5,274,000 beneficiaries, beneficiaries of wage supplementation with covid-19 cause in the month, 2020-04. 2.8 billion hours, hours authorised with covid-19 cause, march to august 2020, 2020-08. INPS, XIX Rapporto annuale (October 2020), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The government extended the existing wage supplementation funds to a Covid-19 cause by decree, covered firms outside the ordinary funds through the solidarity funds and the regional CIG in deroga, and let firms shift payment to INPS, which then had to authorise and pay an unprecedented volume at once.
Limits: The figures are in a 482-page PDF: the monthly beneficiary counts are Tavola 1.7 (PDF pages 43 to 44, in thousands: 4,240 in March, 5,274 in April across ordinary CIG, solidarity funds and CIG in deroga), the 2.8 billion hours on PDF page 16 and again on page 33, and the direct-payment share and the delay in footnote 12 (PDF page 40). The institute reports on its own delivery. Speed is mixed: the rule changed within days of the lockdown, but the decree let any firm request direct payment by INPS without proof of financial difficulty, about 83 percent did, and the report says this produced a delay in payments, especially for the first period requested; it gives no figure for the delay. Authorised hours are not hours used: the report estimates take-up at 63 percent for March and 60 percent for April. The report itself judges the solidarity funds that covered smaller firms evidently inadequate, and the CIG in deroga ran through the regions, which added a step before payment.
Reconstruction after the 2016 and 2017 Central Italy earthquakes
Italy's Extraordinary Commissioner for reconstruction after the 2016 Central Italy earthquakes reported that by 31 May 2026 private reconstruction had received 36,149 grant applications for 17.82 billion euros, approved 24,650, granted 12.59 billion and paid 7.99 billion, and that 14,968 of 23,361 authorised building sites had been completed across the 138 municipalities of the crater.
14,968 building sites, private reconstruction building sites completed (cantieri conclusi), 2026-05-31. 23,361 building sites, private reconstruction building sites authorised (cantieri autorizzati), 2026-05-31. Commissario Straordinario Ricostruzione Sisma 2016 (Presidency of the Council of Ministers), Rapporto sulla ricostruzione Centro Italia post sisma 2016, Anno 2026, Executive Summary, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: Parliament created a dedicated extraordinary commissioner with ordinance powers, regional special reconstruction offices and a single digital platform for grant files, and the commissioner pays reconstruction grants for private homes and runs a programme of public works across four regions.
Limits: The commissioner reports on its own programme, and the executive summary is written as advocacy ('La cura funziona'). The figures are in a PDF, on PDF pages 3 to 5. The host sisma2016data.it rate-limited scripted requests (HTTP 429), so the PDF was read through a fetch tool, not curl. Ten years after the August 2016 shock, about 64 percent of authorised private sites were complete and less than half of the 17.82 billion requested had been paid; the report itself says 69 percent of the payments were made from 2023 onwards, so most of the recovery happened six to ten years after the earthquake, which is evidence of slow recovery as much as of capacity. Applications and sites are counts of files and works, not households rehoused; the report gives one household figure, over 1,300 families (about 2,800 people) returning home in the last year, without a cumulative total. Public reconstruction, 3,667 programmed works for over 4.85 billion euros, is reported as reaching 40 percent of sites under way or finished. The record shows recovery after a shock, not preparation before one: Italy's seismic prevention and the emergency response in 2016 are outside it.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+2.6 over 10 years, from 51.5 in 2016 to 54.1 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
- 15.002% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 12.283% 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
- 75.217score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 5.704index
- 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), 2025
131,481 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 8 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.
MOSE, the Venice lagoon flood barrier
Works on MOSE, Italy's system of 78 mobile gates at Venice's three lagoon inlets, began in 2003. All the gates were first raised on 10 July 2020, and 6,689.07 million euros had been appropriated by mid-2022 with the works about 95 percent complete and still unfinished past their planned 2021 completion.
6,689.07 EUR million, total funds appropriated for mose by the end of the first half of 2022, 2022-06. 95 % complete, share of the infrastructure completed at 17 june 2022, against a completion planned for 2021, 2022-06-17. Corte dei conti, Sezione centrale di controllo sulla gestione delle Amministrazioni dello Stato, deliberazione 92/2024/G (follow-up to deliberazione 35/2023/G), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The state handed design and construction of the lagoon barrier to a single concessionaire consortium under a special law for Venice, and when delays and judicial proceedings stalled it, it appointed extraordinary commissioners to finish and operate the gates provisionally.
Limits: This is a delivery record with a bad cost and schedule history, not a success story: the barrier works, but late and expensive. The source gives total appropriations, not a baseline estimate, so a percentage overrun cannot be computed from it; the Court's report names a 'progressive increase in costs' without a starting figure here, and the original estimate quoted in the press is not used. Appropriated funds are not spending, and the total includes related works (Piano Europa, decarbonisation, San Marco basilica defences). The 95 percent completion figure is from June 2022 and the 2021 completion date had already passed; the record does not say when, or whether, the works were finished after that. The Court lists well-known judicial proceedings, a progressive increase in costs, technical difficulties, environmental questions and Covid-19 among the complexities of the build. The Court reports the gates have repeatedly protected the city, but the source gives no count of closures, so the record does not claim one.