Capability agenda

Japan

Generated 2026-10-03

The frame includes 125 countries. Each dimension is scored from 0 to 100, with no overall ranking, and each score shows its confidence beside it. Read the known limits of the data before you quote a score.

Open the profile: indicators, values, years and sources

Where Japan stands

Dimension	Score	Confidence	Trend
Anticipation	62.2	0.46	+13.2 over 10 years using 2 indicators
Agency	38.6	0.56	no trend
Coordination	69.4	0.39	no trend
Trust	64.4	0.50	no trend
Learning	52.4	0.55	no trend
Experimentation	61.6	0.33	-7 over 10 years using 3 indicators
Adaptability	66.4	0.53	no trend
Building	63.9	0.57	-1.3 over 10 years using 3 indicators
Shared Purpose	41.7	0.23	no trend

Score

weakNear the floor of the frame. Check the confidence before reading anything into it.0 to 25
below middleIn the lower half of the frame.25 to 50
above middleIn the upper half of the frame.50 to 75
strongNear the top of the frame on this dimension.75 and above

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 Do not quote it on its own.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.

Capability over time

Select a dimension to see how Japan’s comparable evidence has moved over time. The vertical scale is the current comparison frame, from 0 to 100.

Dimension

Period

Capability position in the current frame0 to 100

Experimentation 1996 → 2026: 100.0 to 89.2 (-10.8) over 30 years using 2 indicators

Agenda items on this timeline

2018Project-based regulatory sandbox (new technology demonstration scheme)

Historical values use today’s frame from 0 to 100 and a matched basket of indicators. They show movement in the available evidence, not an overall development score. Dated agenda items appear on a separate timeline and do not change the score. A missing line means the evidence does not support a comparable trend for that dimension.

What to raise

These are the lowest scores with usable evidence. Thin evidence appears below.

Agency

38.60.56

How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?

Uses 4 observed indicators. no trend.

Highest usable scores: New Zealand 92.3, Australia 89.2, Estonia 84.3.

Missing indicators: Adults doing digital tasks.

What to measure first

The evidence is too thin to manage these dimensions confidently.

Shared Purpose

0.23

To what extent can people imagine themselves as participants in a common project?

Uses 2 observed indicators.

Missing indicators: Sense of national belonging, Volunteering, Political polarisation.

Rejected datasets: Voice and accountability.

Experimentation

0.33

How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?

Uses 4 observed indicators.

Missing indicators: Venture deals, Firms through regulatory sandboxes, University spinouts.

Rejected datasets: Business share of R&D.

Coordination

0.39

How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?

Uses 3 observed indicators.

Missing indicators: University-industry collaboration, Public-private collaboration.

Rejected datasets: Government effectiveness, Regulatory quality, Logistics performance.

What to keep watching

These dimensions score at least 50 with usable evidence.

Dimension	Score	Confidence
Adaptability	66.4	0.53
Trust	64.4	0.50
Building	63.9	0.57
Anticipation	62.2	0.46
Learning	52.4	0.55

Missing data

18 requested indicators have no comparable dataset, and each one lowers confidence. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.

Dimension	Missing indicator	What it asks
Anticipation	Government foresight capacity	Existence, mandate and continuity of a national strategic foresight function.
Anticipation	Long-horizon research commitments	New competitively awarded public research grants that run for five years or longer, as a share of all new competitive public research grants awarded in the year.
Agency	Adults doing digital tasks	Share of adults who carried out a named digital task in the last three months, such as sending a message with an attached file, moving a file between devices or using a spreadsheet formula, counted one task at a time and never as a skill level.
Coordination	University-industry collaboration	Intensity of research collaboration between universities and firms.
Coordination	Public-private collaboration	Frequency and scale of joint public-private delivery of national objectives.
Trust	Trust in public institutions	Confidence in national government, courts and civil service.
Trust	Court case clearance rate	Civil and commercial cases resolved in a year as a share of cases filed in the same year.
Learning	Adult learning participation	Share of adults in formal or non-formal education and training in the last 12 months.
Experimentation	Venture deals	First venture capital rounds closed by companies based in the country in the year, per million people, counted by deal and never by amount.
Experimentation	Firms through regulatory sandboxes	Firms admitted to, and firms completing, a regulatory sandbox or controlled trial regime in the year, per million people, summed across every regulator in the country.
Experimentation	University spinouts	Companies formed to commercialise university research, per million people.
Adaptability	Disaster preparedness and recovery	Demonstrated capacity to prepare for and recover from major shocks.
Adaptability	Institutional responsiveness	Speed at which rules and public programmes are changed in response to new conditions.
Building	Large project delivery	Cost and schedule performance of major public infrastructure projects.
Building	Firm scale-up rate	Share of young firms reaching significant employment or turnover thresholds.
Shared Purpose	Sense of national belonging	Reported identification with and attachment to the national community, as distinct from pride in the nation.
Shared Purpose	Volunteering	Share of adults who volunteered time to an organisation in the last month.
Shared Purpose	Political polarisation	Degree to which political differences run along a single hostile divide.

What Japan built that no indicator counts

These are documented institutional changes in Japan that the framework records as evidence. They appear beside the score and do not change it or its confidence.

My Number Card, a national identity rail extended into services (Adaptability)
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.
GIGA School, one learning device per student (Building)
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.
Tōhoku reconstruction, a decade-long recovery programme (Adaptability)
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.
Fukushima decommissioning roadmap, a 30–40-year risk-reduction horizon (Anticipation)
After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, Japan adopted a government-led mid-and-long-term decommissioning roadmap and set completion at roughly 30–40 years after cold shutdown, treating the work as continuous risk reduction rather than a one-off rebuild.
Monju, a fast-breeder programme ended before commercial operation (Building)
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.
Volunteer fire corps, and its membership erosion (Shared Purpose)
Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported 732,223 volunteer fire-corps members on 1 April 2025, a fall of 14,458 in one year in the local disaster-response corps that it describes as a core of community resilience.
Project-based regulatory sandbox (new technology demonstration scheme) (Experimentation)
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.
Hokuriku Shinkansen Kanazawa to Tsuruga extension, and its overrun (Building)
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.
Hello Training, public vocational training (Learning)
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.
COI-NEXT, co-creation centres for industry, academia and government (Coordination)
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.
PFI Act projects and concessions (Coordination)
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 ¥10.47 trillion (104,730 hundred-million yen).

Contribute

Fill a gap, file evidence or challenge an indicator at github.com/envisioning/national-capability-benchmark. The docs explain the method and decisions.

🇯🇵Japan