Capability agenda
Generated 2026-10-03
The frame includes 125 countries. Each dimension is scored from 0 to 100, with no overall ranking, and each score shows its confidence beside it. Read the known limits of the data before you quote a score.
Open the profile: indicators, values, years and sources
| Dimension | Score | Confidence | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anticipation | 74.4 | 0.46 | +17.4 over 10 years using 2 indicators |
| Agency | 61.4 | 0.54 | no trend |
| Coordination | 88.8 | 0.40 | no trend |
| Trust | 67.5 | 0.50 | no trend |
| Learning | 52.1 | 0.55 | no trend |
| Experimentation | 72.6 | 0.53 | +12 over 10 years using 3 indicators, with 1 at the frame edge |
| Adaptability | 73.0 | 0.46 | no trend |
| Building | 85.1 | 0.57 | +3.1 over 10 years using 3 indicators |
| Shared Purpose | 40.6 | 0.40 | +3.3 over 10 years using 2 indicators |
Score
Confidence
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
Select a dimension to see how South Korea’s comparable evidence has moved over time. The vertical scale is the current comparison frame, from 0 to 100.
Dimension
Period
Experimentation 2006 → 2026: 82.0 to 98.2 (+16.2) over 20 years using 3 indicators
Agenda items on this timeline
Historical values use today’s frame from 0 to 100 and a matched basket of indicators. They show movement in the available evidence, not an overall development score. Dated agenda items appear on a separate timeline and do not change the score. A missing line means the evidence does not support a comparable trend for that dimension.
The evidence is too thin to manage these dimensions confidently.
To what extent can people imagine themselves as participants in a common project?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Sense of national belonging, Volunteering, Political polarisation.
Rejected datasets: Voice and accountability.
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: University-industry collaboration, Public-private collaboration.
Rejected datasets: Government effectiveness, Regulatory quality, Logistics performance.
These dimensions score at least 50 with usable evidence.
| Dimension | Score | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Building | 85.1 | 0.57 |
| Anticipation | 74.4 | 0.46 |
| Adaptability | 73.0 | 0.46 |
| Experimentation | 72.6 | 0.53 |
| Trust | 67.5 | 0.50 |
| Agency | 61.4 | 0.54 |
| Learning | 52.1 | 0.55 |
18 requested indicators have no comparable dataset, and each one lowers confidence. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
| Dimension | Missing indicator | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| Anticipation | Government foresight capacity | Existence, mandate and continuity of a national strategic foresight function. |
| Anticipation | Long-horizon research commitments | New competitively awarded public research grants that run for five years or longer, as a share of all new competitive public research grants awarded in the year. |
| Agency | Adults doing digital tasks | Share of adults who carried out a named digital task in the last three months, such as sending a message with an attached file, moving a file between devices or using a spreadsheet formula, counted one task at a time and never as a skill level. |
| Coordination | University-industry collaboration | Intensity of research collaboration between universities and firms. |
| Coordination | Public-private collaboration | Frequency and scale of joint public-private delivery of national objectives. |
| Trust | Trust in public institutions | Confidence in national government, courts and civil service. |
| Trust | Court case clearance rate | Civil and commercial cases resolved in a year as a share of cases filed in the same year. |
| Learning | Adult learning participation | Share of adults in formal or non-formal education and training in the last 12 months. |
| Experimentation | Venture deals | First venture capital rounds closed by companies based in the country in the year, per million people, counted by deal and never by amount. |
| Experimentation | Firms through regulatory sandboxes | Firms admitted to, and firms completing, a regulatory sandbox or controlled trial regime in the year, per million people, summed across every regulator in the country. |
| Experimentation | University spinouts | Companies formed to commercialise university research, per million people. |
| Adaptability | Disaster preparedness and recovery | Demonstrated capacity to prepare for and recover from major shocks. |
| Adaptability | Institutional responsiveness | Speed at which rules and public programmes are changed in response to new conditions. |
| Building | Large project delivery | Cost and schedule performance of major public infrastructure projects. |
| Building | Firm scale-up rate | Share of young firms reaching significant employment or turnover thresholds. |
| Shared Purpose | Sense of national belonging | Reported identification with and attachment to the national community, as distinct from pride in the nation. |
| Shared Purpose | Volunteering | Share of adults who volunteered time to an organisation in the last month. |
| Shared Purpose | Political polarisation | Degree to which political differences run along a single hostile divide. |
These are documented institutional changes in South Korea that the framework records as evidence. They appear beside the score and do not change it or its confidence.
South Korea's Economic Planning Board operated from 1961 to 1994 as the government body responsible for economic development planning and budget planning before its functions moved through later finance ministries.
Korea established the Korea Internet and Security Agency in July 2009 by integrating three predecessor organisations, giving the country one public body for internet development, security and international information technology cooperation.
South Korea's MyData policy gives people a route to request and direct the transfer of personal data between services, with the Personal Information Protection Commission describing the scheme as a way to give people control over data portability after the March 2023 legal amendment.
South Korea expanded its regulatory-sandbox system from ICT and industrial-convergence fields in January 2019 to eight sectoral regimes by 2024, adding finance, regulatory-free zones, smart cities, R&D zones, mobility and circular economy testing.
Korea's Employment Insurance-funded employer and in-work training reached 4,916 thousand training participations in 2018, then fell to 2,410 thousand in 2025 after the Ministry of Employment and Labor withdrew support for statutory common training in 2019, COVID closed classrooms in 2020 and a cap on outsourced remote training took effect in late 2023.
Korea built the Seoul to Busan high-speed line planned in 1990 at 5,846.2 billion won for opening in early 1999; by 1993 the Ministry of Transportation re-estimated the cost at 12,174.3 billion won, the first phase opened in April 2004 and the whole line opened in 2010.
Korea's National Assembly enacted the National Assembly Future Institute Act on 12 December 2017 and opened the institute on 28 May 2018 with a statutory duty to predict and analyse changes in the future environment and derive mid to long term national development strategies; its English-language research report archive listed 203 reports in 2026.
The Korea Meteorological Administration expanded the national seismic network from 195 stations when its earthquake early warning service started in January 2015 to 550 stations, and by May 2026 issued early warnings within 5 to 10 seconds of first detection.
Fill a gap, file evidence or challenge an indicator at github.com/envisioning/national-capability-benchmark. The docs explain the method and decisions.