What the benchmark cannot measure

These 26 gaps sit across nine of the nine capabilities. If you know a dataset for one, the message takes a minute and it does not need to be complete: a link and a publisher is enough to start. Other ways to take part are on the ways to help page, and the full registry, scored rows included, is at indicators.

• Government foresight capacity

  Existence, mandate and continuity of a national strategic foresight function.

  Why it is open: No comparable international dataset. OECD and UN work is descriptive, not scored. Envisioning would have to build this.

  direct capability measure, measured in index 0-100Suggest a dataset for this

• Long-horizon research share

  Share of gross R&D expenditure classified as basic research.

  Why it is open: Published by OECD for members only. Missing for India, South Africa, Brazil in comparable form.

  capability input, measured in % of R&DSuggest a dataset for this

• Adult digital skills

  Share of adults who can perform standard digital tasks.

  Why it is open: ITU collects this but coverage across these ten countries is broken and the task lists differ by year.

  direct capability measure, measured in % of adultsSuggest a dataset for this

• Perceived control over life

  Self-reported freedom of choice and control over the course of one’s life.

  Why it is open: WVS wave 7 covers most of these countries but fieldwork years differ by up to six years, and Singapore is thin.

  perception proxy, measured in mean 1-10Suggest a dataset for this

• University-industry collaboration

  Intensity of research collaboration between universities and firms.

  Why it is open: GII carries it, but the underlying item is a WEF executive opinion survey whose microdata is not inspectable. Excluded on principle 4.

  direct capability measure, measured in index 0-100Suggest a dataset for this

• Civil society strength

  Autonomy, density and participatory reach of civil society organisations.

  Why it is open: V-Dem core civil society index is inspectable and would fill this. Not yet wired; it needs its own ingestion adapter.

  direct capability measure, measured in index 0-1Suggest a dataset for this

• Public-private collaboration

  Frequency and scale of joint public-private delivery of national objectives.

  Why it is open: No comparable dataset. PPP investment databases measure infrastructure finance, not collaboration capacity.

  direct capability measure, measured in index 0-100Suggest a dataset for this

• Trust in public institutions

  Confidence in national government, courts and civil service.

  Why it is open: The OECD survey covers members only. Mixing it with WVS items for India and South Africa would break comparability.

  perception proxy, measured in % expressing confidenceSuggest a dataset for this

• Cooperation beyond the in-group

  Reported trust in people met for the first time and in people of another nationality.

  Why it is open: The distinction that makes this dimension worth measuring. Same licensing obstacle as generalised trust.

  perception proxy, measured in % expressing trustSuggest a dataset for this

• Court case clearance rate

  Civil and commercial cases resolved in a year as a share of cases filed in the same year.

  Why it is open: 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.

  downstream outcome, measured in % of incoming casesSuggest a dataset for this

• Adult learning participation

  Share of adults in formal or non-formal education and training in the last 12 months.

  Why it is open: The best available measure of continuous learning capacity, and it exists only for European and OECD members.

  direct capability measure, measured in % of adultsSuggest a dataset for this

• Research citation impact

  Field-normalised citation impact of national research output.

  Why it is open: Computable from OpenAlex, which is open and inspectable. This is the highest-value gap to close next.

  downstream outcome, measured in ratio to world averageSuggest a dataset for this

• Venture capital investment

  Venture capital deployed as a share of GDP.

  Why it is open: Still a gap after a direct check on 2026-08-26. The OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Financing scoreboard is the only inspectable aggregate and it carries venture capital for 6 of these 16 countries, in national currency rather than as a share of GDP, latest year 2022. Brazil, India, South Africa and Singapore are all absent, so wiring it would score the rich half of the set and lower coverage for the rest. Commercial databases cover the world and are not inspectable. Read A1 before treating this dimension as measured.

  direct capability measure, measured in % of GDPSuggest a dataset for this

• Regulatory sandbox activity

  Number and breadth of live regulatory sandboxes and controlled trial regimes.

  Why it is open: Countable from primary sources but nobody maintains a comparable register. A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build.

  direct capability measure, measured in countSuggest a dataset for this

• University spinouts

  Companies formed to commercialise university research, per million people.

  Why it is open: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.

  direct capability measure, measured in per million peopleSuggest a dataset for this

• Business share of R&D

  Share of gross R&D expenditure performed by business enterprises.

  Why it is open: UIS publishes this and it is a good candidate for the next ingestion adapter.

  capability input, measured in % of R&DSuggest a dataset for this

• Long-term unemployment share

  Unemployed for 12 months or more, as a share of total unemployment.

  Why it is open: Closer to reallocation speed than the headline rate: it asks whether people who lose work find new work. ILOSTAT publishes it; the World Bank API does not carry it.

  downstream outcome, measured in % of unemployedSuggest a dataset for this

• Export diversification

  Inverse concentration of the export basket by product.

  Why it is open: UNCTAD publishes the concentration index and it is computable. Another good candidate for the next adapter.

  direct capability measure, measured in index 0-1Suggest a dataset for this

• Disaster preparedness and recovery

  Demonstrated capacity to prepare for and recover from major shocks.

  Why it is open: INFORM is largely a hazard-exposure index, so using it here would measure geography rather than capability.

  direct capability measure, measured in index 0-100Suggest a dataset for this

• Institutional responsiveness

  Speed at which rules and public programmes are changed in response to new conditions.

  Why it is open: No dataset exists. Measurable in principle from legislative and regulatory timestamps, which no one has assembled comparably.

  direct capability measure, measured in index 0-100Suggest a dataset for this

• Large project delivery

  Cost and schedule performance of major public infrastructure projects.

  Why it is open: 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.

  direct capability measure, measured in % overrunSuggest a dataset for this

• Firm scale-up rate

  Share of young firms reaching significant employment or turnover thresholds.

  Why it is open: OECD business dynamics work covers members irregularly. Nothing comparable for India, Brazil or South Africa.

  direct capability measure, measured in % of firmsSuggest a dataset for this

• Sense of national belonging

  Reported pride in and identification with the national community.

  Why it is open: Culturally loaded. High national pride is not the same as capacity for collective action and must not be read as such.

  perception proxy, measured in % expressing belongingSuggest a dataset for this

• Volunteering

  Share of adults who volunteered time to an organisation in the last month.

  Why it is open: CAF publishes country figures but the underlying Gallup microdata is proprietary, so it fails the inspectability rule.

  direct capability measure, measured in % of adultsSuggest a dataset for this

• Political polarisation

  Degree to which political differences run along a single hostile divide.

  Why it is open: V-Dem political polarisation is inspectable and would fill this. Pluralism is the target, so only hostile polarisation should count against a country.

  perception proxy, measured in index 0-4Suggest a dataset for this

• Civic participation

  Active membership in associations, unions, parties and community organisations.

  Why it is open: Behavioural rather than attitudinal, so it is the item worth prioritising if only one survey measure can be harmonised.

  direct capability measure, measured in % of adultsSuggest a dataset for this

• Government effectiveness Coordination

  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 Coordination

  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 Coordination

  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.

• Rule of law Trust

  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 Trust

  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.

• Intentional homicide rate Trust

  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.

• Logistics infrastructure quality Building

  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.

• Voice and accountability Shared Purpose

  Retired 2026-08-26. Artefact A5: it measures the democratic channel while Shared Purpose asks whether people can see themselves in a common project. Singapore scored 20.9 while being one of the most effective collective actors in the set. Voter turnout, volunteering and civic participation are the observable replacements and all are declared gaps. See D23 and A5.

Retiring an indicator needs a decision entry naming the evidence, so each of these can be argued with. File an objection if you think one of them should be scored.