downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 5173.1articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Serbia
Strongest usable evidence: Adaptability, at 69.8. Raise Learning first, at 40.0. Shared Purpose needs more evidence: confidence is 0.28.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Learning | 0.55 | 40.0 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Purpose | 0.28 | 70.7 |
| Trust | 0.29 | 67.1 |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 13.3 |
| Coordination | 0.40 | 81.6 |
| Building | 0.41 | 31.4 |
| Agency | 0.41 | 56.7 |
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: Added in the 9.0.0 completion, which takes every country of a million people or more that is measurable in all nine capabilities.
Anticipation52.9Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Serbia
Read Serbia 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 | 0.40 | 3 of 5 | 0.83 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.28 | 2 of 6 | 0.88 | +10.6(2) | 44.0 | -26.7 | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.29 | 3 of 7 | 0.86 | no trend | 44.0 | -23.1 | |
| Agency | 0.41 | 3 of 5 | 0.72 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +12.5(2) | 47.0 | -5.9 | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.41 | 3 of 6 | 0.86 | -7.0(2) | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | -1.5(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?
+12.5 over 10 years, from 40.4 in 2016 to 52.9 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
- 80.489index 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), 2024
0.94 % of GDP, rank 39 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), 2024
2,688 per million people, rank 31 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
12,942 per million people, rank 38 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
- 47.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
A sound statistical office and EU accession planning requirements give formal anticipatory machinery, but plans are weakly implemented and the Novi Sad canopy collapse, raised by two panelists, shows preventive oversight failing. I take one point off for that.
- 47.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Hold within a tight panel range. Panelist A's point that EU accession forces strategy documents that are then weakly implemented matches my reading: the paperwork of foresight exists but risk oversight, as Novi Sad showed, does not reach the ground.
- 47.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Statistics and article output are solid for the income level, but oversight of public risk failed visibly at Novi Sad and planning documents are weakly implemented. I sit just under the indicator score.
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
- 2.118per 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
- 7days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 7count
- 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.
Perceived control over life
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no datamean 1-10
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- History
- no data
Note: A perception: the publisher-weighted mean, on a 1 to 10 scale, of how much freedom of choice and control respondents feel they have over the way their life turns out, from the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. It observes the felt capacity to act, not action. The table prints the mean to one decimal and no top-box share, so the row stores the mean and ties are common. Fieldwork years differ by up to six years: the 37 countries emitted were surveyed between 2017 (eight, the US among them) and 2023 (India), and every value is stamped with the release year 2022. Response style on 10-point scales differs across cultures, and a closed autocracy can read high: Vietnam and Nicaragua sit near the top of the frame. Countries with separate EVS and WVS samples (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands) are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D127 and A15.
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
87.7 % of population, rank 51 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
83.3 % aged 15+, rank 51 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
35.4 % of GDP, rank 73 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
- 4.13hours
- 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
- 101.547percentage points from approved budget
- Year
- 2023. 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
- 0.525index 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), 2024
1.68 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.
Innovation Fund Collaborative Grant Scheme (Program saradnje nauke i privrede)
Serbia's Innovation Fund financed 79 joint research and development projects of private small and medium firms with public research organisations across eight calls of its Collaborative Grant Scheme, the eighth call, decided in 2024, funding eight.
79 consortium projects, collaborative grant scheme projects listed as funded, all eight cycles (counted from the fund's per-cycle lists), cycles one to eight, to 2024. 8 consortium projects, projects funded in the eighth cycle, 2024. Innovation Fund of the Republic of Serbia (Fond za inovacionu delatnost), Collaborative Grant Scheme, funded projects, all cycles, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The national innovation fund runs competitive calls in which a private SME leads a consortium with a public research organisation, pays part of the budget, and must route at least 15 percent of the grant to the research partner.
Limits: The Fund reports on its own programme and publishes no total: 79 is our count of the project entries on its per-cycle pages (14, 9, 13, 12, 11, 6, 6 and 8 projects in cycles one to eight; each page renders every project twice, and the count is of distinct titles). The pages carry no dates, so the year of each cycle is not read there; that the eighth call funded eight projects in 2024 is from the Ministry of Finance CFCU release of 15 August 2024 ('8 under the Collaborative Grant Scheme Program'), and a Fund release of 20 March 2024 reports six joint projects in the call before. The counts are grants awarded, not completed projects or commercial results. The scheme is co-financed by the European Union through IPA and began under World Bank financing, so the delivery is the Fund's but the money is partly external. Annual volume has fallen from 11 to 14 projects a call in the early cycles to six to eight, and the programme page shows the call as closed with no ninth cycle listed on 2026-10-02, so 'operating' rests on the absence of any announced end. The started year is approximate: the first cycle is not dated on the cited page. Each consortium needs only one firm and one public research organisation, and requires firms to co-finance 30 to 40 percent, so 79 projects is a small national volume.
Moja prva plata, state-paid first-job training placed with employers, and its 2025 halt
Serbia's Government paid a monthly allowance to young people without work experience while employers trained them for nine months under the Moja prva plata programme run by the National Employment Service, which placed 9,237 young people with 5,471 employers in the 2021 cycle and 7,214 with 4,520 employers from the 2023 call in January 2024, but ran no call for 2024 and started no activity under the measure in 2025 against a plan of 10,000 places.
0 young people, young people included in moja prva plata in the year (table 6, measure 5.8), against 10,000 planned, 2025. 9,237 young people (at 5,471 employers), young people selected by participating employers in the 2021 cycle, the highest dated count read, 2021-12-03. Nacionalna sluzba za zaposljavanje (National Employment Service), Izvestaj o radu Nacionalne sluzbe za 2025. godinu, Table 6 and section 5.8, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Government let firms post training positions on a national portal, let young people apply, had employers pick candidates, and paid the trainees directly through a tripartite contract with the National Employment Service, so firms trained at no wage cost.
Limits: The agency reports on its own programme. The zero is in Table 6 (PDF page 23), measure 5.8, planned 10,000 and realised 0, and section 5.8 (PDF page 41) states that no activities to implement the measure were started in 2025; the report gives no reason. The 2021 figure is from a Government portal release (srbija.gov.rs/vest/595588, 3 December 2021), not at the cited URL, and counts young people employers selected at the start of a cycle, not completions; the 2022 cycle was not read, so 2021 is the highest dated count found, not a demonstrated peak. The 2024 report (Izvestaj o radu NSZ za 2024. godinu, Table 6 and page 45, nsz.gov.rs) gives 7,214 young people at 4,520 employers from the 2023 call, contracted between 1 and 19 January 2024, of whom 4,950 were with 3,892 private employers and 2,264 with 628 public employers, and says no public call for 2024 was carried out; the first cycle in 2020 also reserved 2,648 places for public-sector employers, so the programme was never wholly public-private. The 35 percent of first-cycle participants who signed an employment contract is stated in the 2021 release without a denominator or follow-up period. In 2025 municipalities co-financed 36 placements under a local variant (Table 18 of the 2025 report), which this record does not count. The programme portal (mojaprvaplata.gov.rs) still announces a new cycle of up to 10,000 places with no date, so the halt may be a gap between calls rather than an end; the record documents two years without a national call, not abolition. The state paid the allowance and the employer supplied the training and the workplace, so it is a wage subsidy for trainees as much as a training programme, and some employers may have used it in place of hires they would have made anyway.
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
- 622days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.043% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.376scale 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.
Generalised interpersonal trust
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% agreeing
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- no data
Note: Share answering that most people can be trusted in the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. The adapter uses the publisher-weighted country results, emits only countries with one survey row, and holds countries with separate EVS and WVS samples until the respondent-level weights can be pooled reproducibly. See D57 and D64.
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.
Cooperation beyond the in-group
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% expressing trust
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- no data
Note: The distinction that makes this dimension worth measuring: whether trust reaches a person with no tie to the respondent. Generalised trust asks about "most people", which a respondent can fill with their own circle; this item names the stranger. China is the clearest case, high on most people and low on a person met for the first time. The value is the publisher-weighted share answering trust completely plus the share answering trust somewhat, the one sum of two printed columns the adapter stores, exact to about 0.1, over all respondents including don't know and no answer. EVS and WVS ask the same question on the same four-point scale; where one country has both samples, the WVS share is a median 2.2 points higher. Trust in people of another nationality (G007_36_B), which the row once also named, is left out because it reads attitudes to foreigners as much as trust. Fieldwork runs from 2017 to 2023 and every value carries the release year 2022. Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D140.
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.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 44.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
The very low firm bribery figure sits awkwardly beside documented procurement capture and a judiciary under pressure, and court compliance is a third of the scale. Panelist C's point that captured procurement makes the survey figure flattering is persuasive, so I come down one point.
- 45.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Revision down: panelist C is right that the very low firm bribery figure sits awkwardly beside documented captured procurement, which suggests underreporting. The student-led protests show cooperation among strangers on a large scale, which keeps me above C.
- 43.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Very low reported bribery is flattering next to weak court independence and clientelist access; compliance with courts is a third of the scale. Student-led cooperation outside the state is real, so I stay a little above the harshest reading.
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
- 0.677index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 15.346% 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
- 0.927ratio 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
70.6 % gross, rank 40 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
3.4 % of GDP, rank 82 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
35.5 % of secondary, rank 10 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.
National Employment Service labour market training, and its 2025 non-delivery
Serbia's National Employment Service put 1,613 unemployed people into labour market training (obuke za trziste rada) in 2024, but in 2025 it delivered none of the 1,100 places planned for that year for lack of accredited providers, and only 626 people trained under contracts carried over from the 2023 and 2024 plans.
626 people, unemployed people included in labour market training in the year (table 6, 5.4), all from earlier years' plans, 2025. 1,613 people, unemployed people included in labour market training, previous year (table 6, 5.4, report for 2024), 2024. Nacionalna sluzba za zaposljavanje (National Employment Service), Izvestaj o radu Nacionalne sluzbe za 2025. godinu, Table 6 and section 5.4, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The public employment service buys short vocational courses for registered unemployed people from a catalogue it procures each year, and since the adult education law only from providers accredited as publicly recognised adult education organisers.
Limits: The agency reports on itself, in a 127-page PDF in Serbian Cyrillic: Table 6 is on page 23 and the statement that the measure was not realised in 2025 ('dovelo do nerealizacije ove mere u 2025. godini') is on pages 28 to 29, where the agency attributes it to too few training programmes with publicly recognised adult education provider (JPOA) status at the locations needed. The 2024 figure is in the 2024 report (Izvestaj o radu NSZ za 2024. godinu, Table 6, on the same agency page), not at the cited URL. 2024 is the previous year, not a demonstrated peak: the 2019 report gives 1,257. The scale is very small for a country of about 6.6 million: other NSZ measures in the same table (internships, functional basic adult education with 1,157 participants in 2025, employer-requested training with 601) are separate counts and were not added in. The counts are people included, not completions or job outcomes, and cover only the registered unemployed. A one-year procurement and accreditation failure may reverse; the record documents a dated loss, not a permanent end. The started year is approximate: the measure appears in the agency's reports from at least 2010 and the 2009 start is the year the current employment law took effect, not read at the source.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
-1.5 over 10 years, from 11.8 in 2016 to 10.3 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
-10.2 over 20 years, from 21.1 in 2006 to 10.9 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
- 138per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3833per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 137per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 84128per 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- 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.
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
- 7.123% 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
- 45.8% of unemployed
- Year
- 2025. 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
- 0.087index 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
- 5.21% 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
74.2 % aged 15+, rank 46 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
33.4 per 100 people, rank 32 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
10.3 % of output, rank 72 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), 2025
17.1 % of employment, rank 31 of 102. 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.
Three minimum wages paid to private employers in the 2020 state of emergency
After the state of emergency of 15 March 2020, Serbia's Government presented a EUR 5.1 billion economic package on 31 March that included paying micro, small and medium firms one minimum wage per employee for three months if they cut staff by no more than 10 percent, and on 7 May 2020 the Ministry of Finance paid about RSD 32 billion as the first minimum wage for 1.055 million employees of 232,000 businesses.
1.055 million employees, employees covered by the first state-paid minimum wage, 2020-05-07. 37 days, days from the 31 march 2020 package to the first payment on 7 may 2020, 2020-05-07. Government of the Republic of Serbia portal (srbija.gov.rs), 'Sutra isplata prvog minimalca za vise od milion radnika', 6 May 2020, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Ministry of Finance paid a flat minimum wage per employee straight into the accounts of every small private employer that opted in through the tax administration's portal, using payroll tax filings as the register, with a staff-retention condition.
Limits: The page reports the Finance Minister announcing on 6 May that the payment would be made 'tomorrow', so the record rests on a ministerial statement of a payment due the next day, not on a Treasury outturn, and the figures are approximate ('priblizno 32 milijarde dinara'). The package date and the eligibility condition come from a second Government portal release of 31 March 2020 ('Za ublazavanje posledica epidemije na privredu 5,1 milijarda evra', srbija.gov.rs/vest/456168), which also names 15 March as the cut-off for firms that stopped trading; the 37 days are our count between the two releases. The subsidy was nearly universal for private small firms that applied, so it paid many employers who would have kept staff anyway, and the same release says firms also deferred RSD 29.5 billion of taxes and contributions. The page does not give the second and third payments or a final total. The 'condition' that firms not cut staff by more than 10 percent is a rule, and this record does not show whether it was enforced.
Recovery from the May 2014 floods: power supply and flood defences
After the May 2014 floods evacuated about 32,000 people and flooded the Kolubara open-pit mines that fuel 40 percent of Serbia's generating capacity, the state utility EPS dewatered the Tamnava West mine by the first quarter of 2015 and kept supply at pre-flood levels with no recorded shortages, and the Directorate of Water Management rebuilt or upgraded 71 km of flood protection that by October 2019 covered 24,944 households against a target of 9,000.
24,944 households, households receiving improved flood protection, 2019-10. 71 km, length of flood protection works reconstructed or rehabilitated, 2019-10. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Serbia Floods Emergency Recovery Project (P152018), April 2020, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The government used an emergency loan to buy power while the state utility pumped out its flooded lignite mines, then redirected the savings into rebuilding river defences to a higher standard.
Limits: The figures are the World Bank's, in a completion report on an emergency loan it financed and rated; the event figures are in para. 1 (printed page 6), the power and mine results in para. 45 (pages 16 to 17), and the flood protection figures in para. 51 (page 19). Most of the loan bought electricity imports for the 2014 to 2015 winter, so 'no shortages' partly measures money, not preparedness, and the original power target was cut when demand proved lower. The 24,944 households exceeds its target mainly because funds were moved into flood works at restructuring, with a 22-month extension; the target itself was set low. Five substations were procured but never installed for lack of permits, and two meteorological radars were lost to mis-procurement, both before closing. The record is recovery from one event and does not show that warnings or evacuation worked in 2014, when 51 people died.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
-7.0 over 10 years, from 27.4 in 2016 to 20.4 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.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 12.687% of GDP
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
High-technology exports
downstream outcomeset aside, older than 15 years- Raw value
- no data% of manufactured exports
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS)
- History
- one year
The latest value, 4.546 % of manufactured exports in 2007, is more than 15 years old. It does not count toward the score, the scale or the coverage, and it stays in the history.
Note: Sophistication of what gets built. Assembly-heavy economies score high without owning the design.
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
- 53.478score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 0.208index
- 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, 1 record- 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
58,609 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 51 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.
Corridor X motorway sections (E-75 and E-80)
Serbia's state road company Koridori Srbije built 45.5 km of Corridor X motorway on the E-75 towards North Macedonia and the E-80 Dimitrovgrad bypass towards Bulgaria under a loan approved in July 2009, finishing at a total project cost of EUR316.2 million against an appraisal estimate of EUR318.2 million, but taking about 10 years from approval to full completion against a planned 6.5, with the loan closing in September 2019 instead of December 2015.
316.2 million euros, final project cost including government counterpart funds, 2019-09. 318.2 million euros, project cost estimated at appraisal, including contingencies, 2009-07. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Serbia Corridor X Highway Project (P108005), March 2020, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: A dedicated state motorway company procured large lots under development bank rules, held the cost line by re-bidding failed contracts and drawing an additional loan, and accepted years of delay rather than scope cuts.
Limits: The figures are the World Bank's, in a completion report on a project it financed and rated, written with data from the implementing agency. The two costs are in para. 11 and Table 2 (printed page 8) and para. 54 (page 19); the 10 years against 6.5 and the closing dates are in para. 32 (page 13) and the datasheet (page 2). Staying on budget was helped by a 2016 additional loan of EUR35 million that covered overruns (datasheet and para. 58), and the construction cost alone rose 21 percent over the initial contract prices, so 'on budget' means within an appraisal estimate that carried contingencies, not within contract prices. The Dimitrovgrad bypass contractors were terminated twice and its works finished in November 2019 against an April 2012 contract date (Table 6). The record covers only the World Bank financed sections of a longer corridor co-financed by EIB, EBRD and others, whose cost and schedule are not reported here. Traffic in 2018 was 46 percent of the appraisal forecast on the E-80. The start year is the first works contract (April 2010, Table 6).