downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 96543.44articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Japan
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 66.4. Raise Agency first, at 38.6. Shared Purpose needs more evidence: confidence is 0.23.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Agency | 0.56 | 38.6 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Purpose | 0.23 | 41.7 |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 61.6 |
| Coordination | 0.39 | 69.4 |
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: Aging high-capability manufacturer testing whether execution survives demographic decline.
Anticipation62.2Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Japan
Read Japan 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 | |
| Adaptability | 0.53 | 4 of 6 | 0.85 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.50 | 5 of 7 | 0.85 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | -1.3(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +13.2(2) | 73.0 | +10.8 | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | -7.0(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.23 | 2 of 6 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | 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?
+13.2 over 10 years, from 49.0 in 2016 to 62.2 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
- 90.993index 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, 1 record- 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
3.4 % of GDP, rank 5 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
5,609 per million people, rank 16 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
32,929 per million people, rank 26 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.
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.
Fukushima decommissioning roadmap, a 30โ40-year risk-reduction horizon
After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, Japan adopted a government-led mid-and-long-term decommissioning roadmap and set completion at roughly 30โ40 years after cold shutdown, treating the work as continuous risk reduction rather than a one-off rebuild.
30 years, lower bound of planned decommissioning horizon, 2011. 40 years, upper bound of planned decommissioning horizon, 2011. Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Fukushima Daiichi decommissioning roadmap, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Japan put the government in front of the operator, broke an unprecedented nuclear clean-up into staged milestones, invited international review and treated each step as risk reduction while preserving a long horizon for work that cannot be rushed safely.
Limits: A roadmap horizon is a planning commitment, not evidence that decommissioning will finish on time, within cost or with public consent. The technical condition of fuel debris and contaminated water remains uncertain, and the government and operator report progress within their own programme. The case measures willingness to plan across decades and revise stages, not successful completion.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 73.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.60
Hold with a small rise: NISTEP foresight surveys, the Japan Meteorological Agency's earthquake early warning and building-code regimes are decades-old institutions that turned foresight into preparation. Slow action on foreseen demographic decline and the Fukushima tsunami-height planning failure remain the counterweights.
- 73.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
Earthquake and tsunami early warning, community drills in every neighbourhood, excellent statistics and institutionalised technology foresight (NISTEP Delphi) are strong; slow response to foreseen demographic decline and the Fukushima planning failure temper it. I move up one toward panelist C.
- 74.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
Earthquake and tsunami warning, drilled preparation and institutional foresight surveys are decades of conversion, but both panelists weigh the slow response to foreseen demographic decline and I add Fukushima. I move down two.
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
- 0.576per 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
- 11.15days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 8count
- 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
- 6mean 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
85.5 % of population, rank 57 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
98.5 % aged 15+, rank 12 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), 2025
187 % of GDP, rank 3 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
- 26.65hours
- 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
- 123percentage 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
- 0.683index 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), 2025
10.104 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.
COI-NEXT, co-creation centres for industry, academia and government
Japan Science and Technology Agency ran 42 COI-NEXT co-creation centres in April 2023, 30 full-scale and 12 in a development stage, most led by universities and some by national research institutes, which in fiscal 2022 counted 1,073 participating organisations, 256 universities and research institutes and 817 companies and others, with 2,566 participants from the company side.
817 organisations, companies and other non-academic organisations participating in coi-next centres, FY 2022. 42 centres, coi-next centres supported (30 full-scale, 12 development-stage), 2023-04-01. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Science and Technology Policy Bureau, briefing for the 2023 autumn administrative project review (JST operating grant for co-creation programmes), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: JST funds a university-led centre for up to ten years around a stated vision for society, requires the university's leadership to commit and firms to contribute resources, and steps down its funding in the final years so the centre must find its own.
Limits: The source is the funding ministry's own briefing, written to defend the programme's budget before a government spending review, and the participant counts are its self-reported totals. The counts are on PDF page 13 (printed page 12) and the centre counts on PDF page 10 (printed page 9). The organisation counts are for fiscal 2022 alone and are now more than three years old. The category is 'companies and others' (ไผๆฅญ็ญ), which can include municipalities and other non-academic bodies, so 817 is an upper bound on firms. The ministry's claim that external income of about 15.4 billion yen already exceeds about 14 billion yen of support counts resources the firms provided at their own valuation. The 2020 start year is inferred from the heading 'activities FY2020 to FY2022' on the same page. MEXT's fiscal 2026 budget sheet plans support for about 37 centres in the main fields, fewer than 42, which partly reflects centres graduating from support.
PFI Act projects and concessions
Under the 1999 PFI Act, Japanese national and local governments had published implementation policies for a cumulative 1,219 PFI projects by 31 March 2026, 80 of them public facility operating concessions, with a cumulative initial contract value of ยฅ10.47 trillion (104,730 hundred-million yen).
1,219 projects, cumulative pfi projects with a published implementation policy since fy1999, 2026-03-31. 104,730 hundred million yen (oku-en), cumulative pfi contract value (initial contract amounts), 2026-03-31. Cabinet Office of Japan, PPP/PFI Promotion Office, PFIไบๆฅญใฎๅฎๆฝ็ถๆณ๏ผไปคๅ7ๅนดๅบฆ๏ผ, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The national government legislated a standard route for private finance, design, construction and operation of public facilities, and a Cabinet Office promotion office published guidelines, case collections and annual counts, so that municipalities could procure schools, waste plants and civic buildings through PFI and, from 2011, grant operating concessions for airports and water works.
Limits: The count is of projects whose implementation policy was published, which the Cabinet Office tracks by its own survey; a published policy is not a delivered asset, although the note says projects cancelled during service or abandoned before service began are excluded. Most projects are small and local: the sectoral table in the same annex shows local governments sponsoring the large majority (for example 397 of 454 culture and education projects), so the record evidences a widely used procurement route rather than large national infrastructure. The contract value covers initial contract amounts where a public payment was fixed and excludes concession fees, and the annex itself says it differs from the project-scale measure in the 2026 PPP/PFI Action Plan. Nothing here shows value for money or service quality. The figures are read from charts and a table in a PDF (project counts on page 1, contract values on page 2, concessions on page 3, sector table on page 4); the summary page at https://www8.cao.go.jp/pfi/pfi_jouhou/pfi_joukyou/pfi_joukyou_r7.html states 1,219 and 80 in text. The Cabinet Office is the programme's own promoter.
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
- 360days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0% of firms
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.313scale 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
- 33.7% 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
- 10.4% 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
18.6 % 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
- 0.805index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 33.378% of firms
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
- one year
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
- 0.758ratio 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
64.5 % gross, rank 48 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2021
3.3 % of GDP, rank 85 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
11.4 % of secondary, rank 62 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.
Hello Training, public vocational training
Japan's national and prefectural governments trained 225,176 people through public vocational training in fiscal year 2023, 95,752 of them jobseekers and 114,552 people in work, and a further 44,699 through job-seeker support training.
225,176 trainees, trainees in public vocational training (national and prefectural), FY2023. 44,699 trainees, trainees in job-seeker support training, FY2023. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, policy evaluation sheet for policy goal VI-1-1 (public vocational training), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The national government, through polytechnic centres run by its employment support agency, and the prefectures run free vocational courses for jobseekers and fee-based upskilling for employees, contract much of the jobseeker training to accredited private providers, and route trainees through Hello Work offices.
Limits: The figures sit in a table on page 10 of a PDF. The 225,176 total includes 14,872 school-leaver trainees who are mostly young people entering work, not adults returning to learning. Against a labour force of roughly 69 million, public training reaches well under one percent of workers a year; most adult learning in Japan is employer-provided and is not counted here. Trainee counts say nothing about the quality of training beyond the employment rates the same table reports for jobseeker courses.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
-7.0 over 10 years, from 78.3 in 2016 to 71.3 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
-10.8 over 20 years, from 100.0 in 2006 to 89.2 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
-10.8 over 30 years, from 100.0 in 1996 to 89.2 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.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 222452per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 269517per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 22051per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2280920per 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.
Project-based regulatory sandbox (new technology demonstration scheme)
Japan's cross-government regulatory sandbox, created in 2018 under the Productivity Improvement Act and made permanent in 2021 under the Industrial Competitiveness Enhancement Act, had approved 33 demonstration plans involving 152 businesses by 19 March 2025, across mobility, IoT, fintech and healthcare.
33 plans, demonstration plans approved under the regulatory sandbox, cumulative, 2025-03-19. 152 businesses, businesses in approved plans, cumulative, 2025-03-19. Cabinet Secretariat, regulatory sandbox one-stop window, 'Japan's Regulatory Sandbox' briefing, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Cabinet Secretariat opened one government-wide window where a firm can propose a time- and participant-limited trial, and the minister responsible for each affected law approves it after checking with an expert committee, so ministries must answer within fixed timelines and use the trial data to review the rule.
Limits: The count comes from the sandbox's own secretariat in a promotional briefing, not a statistics release. Thirty-three plans over more than six years is about five a year, a modest rate for an economy of Japan's size, and the count says nothing about how many trials led to a permanent rule change; the annex lists some special measures (for example a 2020 insurance-law exception for P2P insurance) but the briefing gives no total of rules amended. A plan is counted at approval, not completion, and several approved plans are small single-firm demonstrations. The briefing's annex dates each approval: 19 of the 33 plans were approved by October 2020, and about three a year since, with one in 2024, so the scheme's use slowed sharply after its first two years. Japan runs other experimentation regimes (national strategic special zones, the grey-zone resolution system, the FSA fintech hub) that are not in this count, so it understates sandbox-type activity as the construct defines it while also overstating it as evidence of reform.
Adaptability
How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.451% 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
- 35.3% of unemployed
- Year
- 2017. 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
- 0.158index 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
- 1.65% 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
82.3 % aged 15+, rank 8 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), 2023
38.6 per 100 people, rank 19 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
4.9 % of output, rank 17 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)
No value for this country. 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.
My Number Card, a national identity rail extended into services
By July 2024 Japan reported 93.08 million My Number Cards held, about 75% of the population; 73.71 million had valid health-insurance-card registrations in June 2024, while 566 businesses used the public-key identity infrastructure.
93,080,000 cards, my number cards held, 2024-07. 73,710,000 registrations, valid health-insurance-card registrations, 2024-06. Digital Agency of Japan, digital utilisation progress report, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Japan built one nationally recognised credential and progressively connected it to health insurance, public accounts, online procedures and private identity verification, using legal changes and a central digital agency to extend the rail while responding to implementation problems.
Limits: Card holdings and registrations measure administrative reach, not active use, accuracy, privacy, accessibility or whether services became easier. The Digital Agency aggregates government and survey data, and the health-insurance and private-sector figures cover different dates and definitions. A high stock of cards can coexist with misregistrations, support burdens and people who cannot use a digital credential.
Tลhoku reconstruction, a decade-long recovery programme
After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Japan completed the planned 29,654 public-housing units by December 2020, completed 18,226 higher-ground residential-land units, opened about 570 kilometres of reconstruction roads by December 2021 and restored all damaged railways by March 2020.
29,654 housing units, public-housing units completed in the reconstruction plan, 2020-12. 570 kilometres, reconstruction roads opened to traffic, 2021-12. Reconstruction Agency of Japan, progress to date, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Japan set a ten-year reconstruction frame, created a dedicated agency and combined higher-ground relocation, public housing, roads, rail restoration and livelihood support, reviewing the programme as the ordinary disaster areas moved from emergency recovery toward long-term revitalisation.
Limits: Completion of housing, roads and railways shows delivery against a public programme, not whether communities regained population, livelihoods, trust or long-term safety. The agency notes that nuclear-disaster areas and support for evacuees continue, and the figures mix planned units, roads and different completion dates. A completed asset is not the same as a recovered place.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
-1.3 over 10 years, from 62.2 in 2016 to 60.9 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
- 18.817% of GDP
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 17.555% 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
- 72.652score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 6.435index
- 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, 3 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
87,888 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 32 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.
GIGA School, one learning device per student
Japan's MEXT GIGA School programme reached a one-device-per-student environment in 1,810 of 1,812 local school authorities (99.9%) by the end of fiscal 2022, with the remaining two scheduled to finish during fiscal 2023.
1,810 local school authorities, local school authorities with one-device environment, FY2022. 99.9 % of local school authorities, local school authorities complete, FY2022. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, GIGA School status survey, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: The national ministry set a clear one-device standard and channelled grants, procurement guidance and network support through local school authorities, while vendors supplied hardware and software and schools adapted use to their own classrooms.
Limits: The completion count means a device was in a student's hands and a school network was usable; it does not measure learning, teacher workload, device quality, replacement costs or equal use at home. MEXT reports the authority survey and the last two authorities were still finishing after the reference year. Delivery of hardware is therefore a national implementation milestone, not proof of better education.
Monju, a fast-breeder programme ended before commercial operation
Japan decided in December 2016 not to restart the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor and moved to decommissioning after a 1995 sodium leak, a 2010 restart followed by equipment trouble and 2012 inspection failures; the approved plan targets roughly 30 years of decommissioning.
22 years, years from first criticality to decommissioning decision, 2016. 30 years, planned monju decommissioning period, 2018. Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Monju decommissioning plan, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: After repeated technical and inspection failures, Japan stopped trying to restart a strategically important prototype, created a government-led decommissioning team and converted the remaining work into a staged thirty-year plan with external oversight and local coordination.
Limits: The decision to end the programme and its planned duration do not quantify total cost, opportunity cost, safety performance or the amount of equipment actually removed. The government account describes the policy and management failures and the successor decommissioning plan; it is not an independent assessment of the nuclear programme's full social effects.
Hokuriku Shinkansen Kanazawa to Tsuruga extension, and its overrun
Japan's Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency built the 125 km Kanazawa to Tsuruga extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen from 2012; its authorised cost rose from 1.1858 trillion yen in 2017 to 1.6779 trillion yen after a second increase of 265.8 billion yen in March 2021, completion slipped one year to the end of fiscal 2023, and the line opened on 16 March 2024.
16,779 100 million yen (oku-yen), authorised project cost after the march 2021 revision, 2021-03. 2,658 100 million yen (oku-yen), cost increase approved in the march 2021 revision, 2021-03. Board of Audit of Japan, fiscal 2020 audit report, chapter 4 item 11, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The transport ministry authorised a state construction agency to build the line on a politically accelerated deadline; when the agency disclosed a second overrun late, the ministry set up an external verification committee, downgraded the agency's performance rating and issued a statutory improvement order, and the Board of Audit examined the causes in its annual report.
Limits: This is a delivery with a large overrun, filed because the construct asks for cost and schedule performance, not as a success. The overrun against the 2017 authorised cost is about 41 percent (1.6779 against 1.1858 trillion yen), a figure computed here, not published; against the 2012 plan it cannot be computed from this source. The final outturn cost after the March 2021 revision is not in the audit report, and the opening date comes from the delivery agency's own page. The one-year slip is measured against a deadline that the government had itself pulled three years forward in 2015, so part of the 'delay' is a political acceleration that did not hold. Some of the increase reflects new seismic standards and a consumption-tax rise, which an auditor might count as scope or price change rather than poor management; the audit office and the ministry's own verification committee nonetheless found weak reporting from site to headquarters and inadequate ministry oversight, and the ministry issued a formal business-improvement order. One project is not a national track record.