downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 23690.94articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Malaysia
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 77.9. 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 | 11.4 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.40 | 55.7 |
| Coordination | 0.41 | 86.1 |
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: Middle-income manufacturer testing the move into higher-value production.
Anticipation54.4Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Malaysia
Read Malaysia 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 | 0.41 | 3 of 5 | 0.86 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Adaptability | 0.59 | 4 of 6 | 0.96 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | +6.2(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.50 | 5 of 7 | 0.85 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.40 | 3 of 6 | 0.86 | -1.0(2) | 45.0 | -10.7 | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +23.2(2) | 56.0 | +1.6 | |
| Agency | 0.56 | 4 of 5 | 0.75 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | -3.4(3) | 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?
+23.2 over 10 years, from 31.2 in 2016 to 54.4 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
- 84.991index 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), 2022
1 % of GDP, rank 38 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), 2022
1,218 per million people, rank 48 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
7,475 per million people, rank 45 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
- 58.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I move down two points: the others are right that the December 2021 floods exposed weak operational preparation despite the planning apparatus. The Economic Planning Unit and the Malaysia Plans have still survived the 2018 and 2022 changes of government, which keeps me above the indicator score.
- 56.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
A's point that planning continuity has survived the 2018 to 2022 changes of government is one I accept, so I add a point; I stay below A because the 2021 flood failures show foresight that does not reach local preparation.
- 56.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Five-year plans, a central planning unit and a strong statistics system are behaviour that converts resources into foresight, with mid-level research output. Panelist A's 60 is plausible but the 2021 floods show uneven follow-through, so I move up one point.
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
- 2.379per 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
- 17days
- 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
- 7.2mean 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
98 % of population, rank 4 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
88.7 % aged 15+, rank 38 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
118 % of GDP, rank 15 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
- 28hours
- 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
- 102.956percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2024. 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
- 0.755index 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, 2 records- 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
12.805 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.
JENDELA national digital-network plan
Malaysia's JENDELA Phase 1 connected 7.74 million premises with fibre by 2022, above its 7.5 million target, and raised 4G coverage in populated areas to 96.92% through a regulator-led programme delivered with telecommunications providers.
7,740,000 premises, premises passed by jendela fibre, 2022. 96.92 % of populated areas, 4g coverage in populated areas after jendela phase 1, 2022. JENDELA, Phase 1 concluding report, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Malaysia's communications regulator set common coverage and fibre targets, coordinated multiple providers and retired 3G spectrum to concentrate investment on a shared 4G foundation before expanding 5G.
Limits: Premises passed and populated-area coverage measure network availability, not affordability, uptime, actual household subscriptions or rural service quality. The programme report combines regulator and industry-reported delivery and its coverage denominator excludes unpopulated areas, so it is not a national land-area measure.
DuitNow on the Real-time Retail Payments Platform
Bank Negara Malaysia merged its clearing subsidiary with the banks' payment consortium into PayNet, jointly owned by the central bank and the financial industry, which rolled out the Real-time Retail Payments Platform with DuitNow from December 2018; BNM statistics record 5,438.6 million RPP transactions worth RM3,638.1 billion in 2025, up from 109.3 million in 2019.
5,438.6 million transactions, rpp (duitnow) transaction volume, 2025. 109.3 million transactions, rpp (duitnow) transaction volume in the first full year, 2019. Bank Negara Malaysia, Payment Statistics, Table 3 Payment Systems (transaction volume and value), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: Bank Negara Malaysia merged its own clearing house with the banks' payment consortium into one jointly owned operator, then used it to build a shared real-time rail with a national proxy (phone and ID number) addressing database that every bank connects to.
Limits: Transaction volume measures use of a shared rail, not the depth of collaboration: it does not show how costs, governance or pricing are split between BNM and the banks that owned MEPS (11 domestic banks per the 2017 release), nor whether non-bank participants get fair access in practice. Part of the growth substitutes for other electronic channels (Interbank GIRO, Instant Transfer) rather than adding new payments, and the 2019 base is the platform's ramp-up year, so the multiple overstates organic growth. The joint-ownership fact comes from a 2017 announcement of intent ('will be jointly owned'), not a current shareholder register. The central bank is both shareholder and overseer, so this is a central-bank-led utility as much as a partnership.
Public-Private Research Network (PPRN) matching grants
Malaysia's Ministry of Higher Education approved 680 Public-Private Research Network projects involving 634 companies by the end of 2022, with a total allocation of RM27.7 million, and 469 of them had closed as successfully completed.
680 projects, pprn projects approved, cumulative, 2022. 634 companies, companies involved in approved pprn projects, cumulative, 2022. Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (KPT), Deputy Minister's speech at the PPRN 2.0 briefing and exhibition, 22 February 2023, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The ministry matches a company's own contribution, on a sliding scale by company size, to pay a university or public research institute researcher to solve a problem the company brings, and pays the researcher's fee only after the project is certified complete.
Limits: The figures come from a ministerial speech published on the ministry's site, not from an annual report or audit, and the page is in Malay with no English translation. They are cumulative since the programme began, so they do not show the annual rate. The projects are small: RM27.7 million across 680 projects is roughly RM41,000 of public money each, and the speech describes them as demand-driven projects to raise company productivity rather than joint research of the kind the indicator's survey item imagines. The productivity gain the speech quotes comes from a 2019 study by the Malaysia Productivity Corporation that is not cited here. The page writes the amount as 'RM 27,797,149.25 juta', a typo for RM27.8 million, and the record uses the rounded RM27.7 million the same sentence gives. The start year is not stated in the speech, which places PPRN under the 2015-2025 higher education blueprint.
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
- 425days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.804% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.078scale 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
- 19.6% 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
- 14.9% 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 % 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
- 0.611index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 37.019% 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
- 1.222ratio 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), 2024
38.5 % gross, rank 75 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), 2023
3.5 % of GDP, rank 81 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), 2019
10.3 % of secondary, rank 66 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.
Kolej Komuniti part-time and lifelong-learning (Pembelajaran Sepanjang Hayat) courses
Malaysia's public community colleges, run by the Ministry of Higher Education, counted 259,788 part-time students, including participants in Pembelajaran Sepanjang Hayat lifelong-learning courses, in 2024, against 259,810 in 2023, according to the ministry's Statistik Pendidikan Tinggi 2024.
259,788 students, part-time students in community colleges, total, part-time including psh programme (table 5.4), 2024. 259,810 students, same count for the previous year, same table, 2023. Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi), Statistik Pendidikan Tinggi 2024, chapter 5 (Kolej Komuniti), Table 5.4 'Number of Part Time Students based on State of Institution and Gender by Community Colleges 2023-2024', source TVET Coordination Division, Department of Polytechnic and Community College Education, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The higher education ministry uses its national network of community colleges, built for post-secondary vocational certificates, to also run short and part-time courses for local adults, and counts them in its annual statistics.
Limits: The ministry reports on its own colleges. The number sits in a PDF: Table 5.4 runs over several pages and the national total is on page 42 of the 72-page chapter file (printed page 143), with the note 'Part Time Student includes PSH programme'. The table does not split PSH short-course participants from part-time certificate and diploma students, does not give ages, and counts enrolments rather than unique people, so one adult taking three short courses can count three times and many PSH courses last hours or days. Against roughly 23 million Malaysians of working age it is about one participation per hundred adults, which is a reach figure, not a participation rate comparable with Eurostat or PIAAC. Earlier editions of the same publication give 238,581 (2018), 222,675 (2019), 118,455 (2020), 140,501 (2021) and 245,909 (2022), so the count halved in the pandemic and has since passed its pre-pandemic level; those figures are in the 2019, 2021 and 2023 chapter files, not at the cited URL. The 2025 edition of chapter 5 no longer carries a part-time table, so 2024 is the latest year published and the status rests on that year. The 2001 start is the year the community college system began operating as commonly reported; it was not read at the cited source.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
-3.4 over 10 years, from 13.1 in 2016 to 9.7 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
+0.1 over 20 years, from 9.6 in 2006 to 9.7 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
- 883per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 20128per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 468per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 348012per 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.
Bank Negara Malaysia Fintech Regulatory Sandbox
Bank Negara Malaysia has operated a fintech regulatory sandbox since October 2016 and added an accelerated Green Lane for financial institutions in February 2024; as of June 2026 it reported 139 Standard and Green Lane applications submitted to date and five solutions in live testing.
5 count, solutions currently in testing in the sandbox, 2026-06. 139 count, standard and green lane applications submitted since 2016, 2026-06. Bank Negara Malaysia, Regulatory Sandbox page (Activities in the Sandbox), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: Bank Negara Malaysia published a sandbox framework that lets fintech firms test regulated financial services live under tailored conditions, then added a faster Green Lane so incumbents with a strong risk-management record can test with lighter procedures.
Limits: The page is the regulator reporting on its own programme, as a live dashboard with no archived history, so the figures can change without notice and earlier values cannot be checked. 139 counts applications (the page also calls them applicants), not admissions: BNM publishes no count of participants admitted or graduated, so the share rejected, withdrawn or still in assessment is unknown. The same page's table of solutions currently in the sandbox lists six firms (one dating from June 2022) against the counter's five, so the live-test count is itself inconsistent on the source page. Five live tests after almost ten years is a small number, and the count says nothing about whether tested products reached the market or led to rule changes. It covers one regulator's sandbox; other Malaysian regulators' sandboxes are not counted here.
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
- 3.764% 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
- 8.3% of unemployed
- Year
- 2022. 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
- 0.289index 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
- 5.13% 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
70.7 % aged 15+, rank 63 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
13.5 per 100 people, rank 70 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), 2023
6.9 % of output, rank 40 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.
MySejahtera and the national COVID-19 immunisation programme
Malaysia's national COVID-19 immunisation programme had administered 57,119,777 doses by 31 December 2021, while the MySejahtera application was used to collect 974,134 adverse-event responses for vaccine safety monitoring.
57,119,777 doses, covid-19 vaccine doses administered, 2021-12-31. 974,134 responses, adverse-event responses submitted through mysejahtera, 2021-12-31. Malaysia Ministry of Health, Annual Report 2021, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Malaysia paired a central vaccination command with a single citizen-facing app for registration, appointments, certificates and safety reporting, then used public clinics and contracted providers to move millions of doses through one operational workflow.
Limits: Doses and safety-report counts show the ability to mobilise a national vaccination operation, not coverage equity, completed-course protection, clinical outcomes or whether every adverse event was reported. The annual report is produced by the ministry running the programme and the MySejahtera responses are passive self-reports, so neither number is an independent measure of safety or effectiveness.
National flood-warning SMS system
Malaysia's National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA), water and meteorological agencies and telecommunications companies sent more than five million flood-warning SMS messages during the 2023/24 monsoon season and upgraded 442 transmission-tower sites to keep warnings and communications functioning.
5,000,000 messages, flood-warning sms messages sent, 2024-03. 442 sites, transmission-tower sites upgraded for disaster resilience, 2024. National Disaster Management Agency Malaysia, flood-warning system announcement, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: NADMA joined hydrology, weather, communications regulation and commercial telcos into one warning workflow, using the mobile network's national reach while requiring operators to harden the physical sites that warnings depend on.
Limits: Message volume and tower upgrades show an alert channel and network hardening, not whether warnings arrived before local flooding, were understood, or changed evacuation behaviour. NADMA reports the output itself, and the source does not provide false-alarm rates, geographic reach or outcomes for people who received the messages.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+6.2 over 10 years, from 60.1 in 2016 to 66.3 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
- 22.096% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 58.628% 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
- 97.391score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.4index
- 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, 2 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
70,821 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 42 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.
Malaysia completed and opened the 57.7-kilometre MRT Putrajaya Line in two phases, with 36 operational stations serving a corridor of about two million people; full operations began on 16 March 2023.
57.7 kilometres, putrajaya line length, 2023. 36 stations, operational putrajaya line stations, 2023. Mass Rapid Transit Corporation Malaysia, Putrajaya Line project page, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Malaysia created a dedicated state delivery corporation, divided a technically complex urban railway into phases and used interchange stations and park-and-ride facilities to make the new line part of a larger metropolitan network.
Limits: Length and station counts show the physical delivery, not the line's final cost, construction schedule, reliability, ridership or operating subsidy. The project page is maintained by the state-owned delivery corporation and describes the corridor's intended population and ridership rather than independently audited outcomes.
Kuala Lumpur–Singapore high-speed rail, terminated before construction
Malaysia allowed the bilateral Kuala Lumpur–Singapore high-speed rail agreement to terminate on 31 December 2020 and paid Singapore SGD102,815,576 in March 2021 for verified costs incurred on the project and for extending its suspension.
102,815,576 Singapore dollars, compensation paid after hsr agreement termination, 2021-03-29. MyHSR Corporation and Singapore Ministry of Transport, joint compensation statement, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: Malaysia used a treaty-level bilateral project to coordinate a cross-border railway, but a change of government, proposed scope changes and successive suspensions exhausted the agreement's final deadline; termination then converted planning work into a compensable sunk cost.
Limits: The compensation figure records a bilateral settlement, not the full public cost of years of planning, land work or foregone connectivity. No rail construction was delivered; later proposals to revive or redesign a Malaysian line are separate projects, not evidence that this one operated. The 2016 start year (the bilateral agreement) and the earlier suspensions are not stated in the cited compensation statement; MyHSR's FAQ documents the suspension to 31 May 2020.