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 | 76.1 | 0.46 | +9 over 10 years using 2 indicators |
| Agency | 66.2 | 0.38 | no trend |
| Coordination | 93.2 | 0.39 | no trend |
| Trust | 85.1 | 0.30 | no trend |
| Learning | 76.2 | 0.55 | no trend |
| Experimentation | 54.6 | 0.36 | no trend |
| Adaptability | 82.1 | 0.62 | no trend |
| Building | 57.2 | 0.57 | -0.5 over 10 years using 3 indicators |
| Shared Purpose | 82.7 | 0.28 | +7.7 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 Do not quote it on its own.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 Netherlands’s comparable evidence has moved over time. The vertical scale is the current comparison frame, from 0 to 100.
Dimension
Period
Shared Purpose 1996 → 2026: 70.5 to 82.7 (+12.2) over 30 years using 2 indicators
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 2 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Sense of national belonging, Volunteering, Political polarisation.
Rejected datasets: Voice and accountability.
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Trust in public institutions, Court case clearance rate.
Rejected datasets: Rule of law, Control of corruption, Intentional homicide rate.
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.
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Adults doing digital tasks.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Adaptability | 82.1 | 0.62 |
| Learning | 76.2 | 0.55 |
| Anticipation | 76.1 | 0.46 |
| Building | 57.2 | 0.57 |
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 Netherlands that the framework records as evidence. They appear beside the score and do not change it or its confidence.
The Netherlands legislated a standing programme against flooding and fresh-water shortage, run by an independent Delta Commissioner and paid from a dedicated Delta Fund that expects 27.4 billion euros to be available through 2050.
The Netherlands ended roughly sixty years of Groningen gas extraction with the permanent closure of all production locations on 19 April 2024; by the end of 2024 the response system had handled more than 500,000 damage reports and paid over €2.5 billion in compensation.
The Netherlands ran Room for the River from 2006 to 2019, delivering 39 measures at 34 locations along the IJssel, Waal, Nederrijn and Lek for about four million residents at a total cost of €2.3 billion.
The Netherlands' tax administration put tens of thousands of childcare-benefits parents into debt between 2004 and 2019; by February 2026 the recovery operation had recognized more than 43,000 parents as harmed among about 69,000 applicants and guaranteed each recognized parent at least €30,000.
The Netherlands has run DigiD as a shared login for public services since 2005; in 2024 it recorded 550,153,271 successful authentications across 16,829,696 accounts and reported 99.94 percent availability against a 99.5 percent norm.
The Netherlands established the Social and Economic Council (SER) by law in 1950, giving employers, trade unions and independent Crown-appointed experts a standing forum for social and economic policy; the current council has 36 members and collective agreements cover more than 84 percent of employees.
On 1 January 2013 the Netherlands merged 25 autonomous regional police corps and the national KLPD into one organisation with ten regional units, a national unit and a shared Police Services Centre, centralising specialist capacity while retaining local teams.
The Netherlands tests NL-Alert twice a year and, in the 1 December 2025 national test, 92 percent of residents aged 12 and over said they received the message on their mobile phone; 90 percent received it only on that channel and 2 percent received it on mobile plus public digital signs.
After the 1953 flood, the Netherlands built 13 Delta Works between the first project in 1954 and the completion of the Maeslant Barrier in 1997, creating a long-lived national defence system of dams, sluices and storm-surge barriers.
In November 2023 the Netherlands renewed its mission-driven innovation compact: businesses, knowledge institutions, governments and other organisations committed an estimated €5.7 billion a year, coordinated through five missions and eight Knowledge and Innovation Agendas.
The Netherlands opened the Betuweroute freight railway in 2007, but the Auditor General found that state operating support in 2006–2013 reached €170 million against a €76 million maximum subsidy and required another €152 million through 2015; the line was not cost-covering and its promised environmental gain was never measured.
The Netherlands runs MijnOverheid as one portal for government mail and personal data; in 2024 it carried 103,429,342 messages through 11,015,895 accounts with reported availability of 99.99 percent against a 99 percent norm.
The Netherlands built iDEAL as a shared bank-connected online payment rail; in 2024 it processed 1.47 billion payments worth €141 billion, almost matching the €147 billion spent through debit cards at the point of sale.
The V250 trains for the Netherlands–Belgium Fyra service entered operation six years late and the service was cancelled after only 40 days, leaving the intended passenger service on the HSL-Zuid unrealised and triggering a parliamentary inquiry.
The Netherlands built delegated authority into its public-service login so a family member, carer or adviser can act for someone else without taking their password; in 2024 DigiD Machtigen handled 15,563,897 queries from 798 connected services at 99.84 percent availability against a 99.5 percent norm.
The Netherlands developed eHerkenning with commercial identity providers so businesses could use one trusted login across public services; in 2024 the framework recorded 1,140,751 authentication means and 639 connected organisations.
The Netherlands runs Digipoort as a central gateway that receives, validates and routes secure messages between businesses and public agencies; in 2024 it handled 75,433,353 messages, including a channel with 3,075 connected organisations for financial and social reporting.
The Netherlands ended DigiNotar's PKIoverheid service after the 2011 breach generated at least 531 forged certificates; 333 could be revoked and the government tightened certificate requirements, role division and supervision after the incident.
Translink and the Dutch public-transport operators rolled out OVpay nationwide in 2023, embedding bank-card and mobile check-in across the country; in 2024 the system processed 390 million travel transactions, 15 percent of all transit transactions.
On 1 January 2024 the Netherlands put the Omgevingswet and its Digital Environment System into operation, joining municipalities, provinces, water boards and the national government behind one Omgevingsloket for rules, maps and permit applications.
The Netherlands operated the Programmatic Approach to Nitrogen (PAS) from July 2015 until the Council of State invalidated its legal basis in May 2019; by the end of 2023, 2,557 affected PAS reporters had sought permits and only 115 had a recorded solution.
The Dutch economy ministry let energy cooperatives and owners' associations deviate from the Electricity Act 1998 through 19 exemptions granted in four rounds between 2015 and 2018, then closed the scheme to new entrants; by 2024 only 10 of the experiments were operational.
The Dutch employee insurance agency UWV paid individual training grants of up to 1,000 euros from 2022, approved more than 214,000 applications in five rounds that year, and stopped the scheme on 1 January 2024.
NWO's Perspectief programme, funded mainly by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, awarded 12 public-private technology consortia in 2025 with 46.4 million euros of subsidy, each joining at least three knowledge institutions with at least four companies or other users paying at least 30 percent of costs; the ministry's own page records that the last Perspectief round started in July 2026.
Fill a gap, file evidence or challenge an indicator at github.com/envisioning/national-capability-benchmark. The docs explain the method and decisions.