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Documented examples

Each record describes something a country built that the indicators do not capture. The source provides the published number; the mechanism is our interpretation.

Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 742 of 742 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.

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6 of 742 deliveries

Anticipation

1 delivery linked to Government foresight capacity.

Switzerlandsince 2007still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity

Federal Chancellery situation and environment analysis (Perspektivstab)

Switzerland's Federal Chancellery runs a long-term, continuous situation and environment analysis for the Federal Council that looks 10 to 15 years ahead; it produced Herausforderungen in 2007 with expertise from 30 federal offices, Perspektiven 2025 in 2011, Perspektiven 2030 in 2014, the Schweiz 2030 and Schweiz 2035 reports and the scenario report Perspektiven Schweiz 2040, which feed the Federal Council's legislature planning.

6 reports, reports in the chancellery situation and environment analysis series named on the page, 2026-10-02. 30 federal offices, federal offices whose expertise fed the 2007 report herausforderungen, 2007. Swiss Federal Chancellery, Lage- und Umfeldanalyse, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The Federal Chancellery, as staff office of the Federal Council, pools experts from across the federal offices into a standing interdepartmental staff that writes a futures report timed to each legislature planning cycle.

Preconditions

  • A collegial executive whose four-year legislature planning gives the report a fixed customer and date
  • A neutral staff office above the departments that can convene them without belonging to one
  • Federal offices willing to lend analysts to a cross-cutting exercise

Limits: The report count is ours, made from the six titles the page names (Herausforderungen, Perspektiven 2025, Perspektiven 2030, Schweiz 2030, Schweiz 2035, Perspektiven Schweiz 2040). Both numbers describe the process, not its effect: six reports and 30 contributing offices show the analysis was made, not that a decision changed because of it. The Chancellery describes its own work and states that the reports serve as a basis for legislature planning; the source does not show how. The page gives publication years only up to 2014 and does not date Schweiz 2030, Schweiz 2035 or Perspektiven Schweiz 2040, so the series after 2014 is shown as existing, not as dated. Started is the year of the earliest report the page names, not the founding of the Perspektivstab, which the page does not date. The 30 offices figure belongs to the 2007 report only. The Chancellery is the Federal Council's staff office, so this is a staff function, not a minister's unit.

Coordination

2 deliveries linked to Public-private collaboration, University-industry collaboration.

Switzerlandsince 2004still operatingbears on Public-private collaboration

Dual-track vocational training

Switzerland runs most upper-secondary education through firms: of 218,259 students enrolled in vocational education and training in 2020, 90.6 percent, 197,782, were apprentices trained inside companies under federal law.

197,782 apprentices, apprentices in dual-track training, 2020. 90.6 % of VET students, share of vet students in the dual track, 2020. Cedefop, European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, dual-track VET scheme fiche, retrieved 2026-08-27.

The move, and what it needed

Federal law makes firms, cantons and professional associations joint owners of training: associations write the curricula for their own occupations, firms hire and pay apprentices to do real work, and the state examines and certifies, so the labour market signals what to teach.

Preconditions

  • Employer associations strong enough to write and update curricula
  • Apprentice wages low enough that training pays for the firm
  • Social standing for the vocational route, so strong students choose it

Where else it has been used: Germany and Austria run sibling systems; exports to countries without employer associations mostly produce school-based programmes with the dual name, which drops the part that works.

Limits: Enrolment counts participation in the system, not what the training is worth; the wage and employment evidence sits in separate studies. The system long predates the number: 2004 is the current federal act, not the start of apprenticeship in Switzerland, and the record cannot show how much of the outcome is the law versus a century of employer habit. Firms train because it pays them net of apprentice output, and that arithmetic, not the statute, is the load-bearing part.

Switzerlandsince 2018still operatingbears on University-industry collaboration

Innosuisse innovation projects with implementation partners

Innosuisse, the Swiss federal innovation agency, recorded CHF 113.95 million of contributions in 2025 to innovation projects in which a Swiss research institution works with a company or other implementation partner that bears 40 to 60 percent of the project cost, and held CHF 144.3 million of further commitments to such projects at the end of the year.

113,950,000 Swiss francs, contributions to innovation projects with implementation partner, 2025. 144,311,000 Swiss francs, commitments to innovation projects with implementation partner outstanding at year end, 2025-12-31. Innosuisse, Swiss Innovation Agency, Geschรคftsbericht 2025 (annual report and financial statements), notes 17 and 22, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The federal agency pays only the research institution's side of a project, and only when a partner in the economy bears a large share of the cost and contributes cash, so public money follows demonstrated private demand for academic expertise.

Preconditions

  • Universities of applied sciences with a mandate for applied research and staff used to firm-facing projects
  • A dense base of SMEs able to co-fund 40 to 60 percent of a project
  • A stable federal budget line and an agency with independent project selection

Where else it has been used: The co-funding rule resembles Fraunhofer's income-linked base grant in effect, but works project by project. Austria's and Finland's agencies use similar rules; the Swiss version depends heavily on the universities of applied sciences, which have no close equivalent in many systems.

Limits: The figures are inside a PDF, in the financial statements (PDF page 32, printed page 29, note 17; and PDF page 36, printed page 33, note 22), in thousands of francs. This is the agency reporting on its own spending. The money is the public share paid to research partners: it does not include the firms' own 40 to 60 percent or their cash contributions, so it understates the joint effort, and the accounts give no count of projects or firms. Research partners include universities, universities of applied sciences and non-university research bodies, and implementation partners can be administrations and non-profits as well as firms, so not every franc is university-firm collaboration. Spending measures input, not whether projects produced products. Started is 2018, the year the current agency took over the instrument from its predecessor; neither cited source states that date, and the instrument is older.

Adaptability

2 deliveries linked to Institutional responsiveness, Disaster preparedness and recovery.

Switzerlandsince 2020delivered and closedbears on Institutional responsiveness

Covid-19 bridging credits

The Swiss Federal Council adopted an emergency ordinance on 25 March 2020 and, through 125 banks including PostFinance under federal guarantee, granted 137,870 Covid-19 credits worth CHF 16.9 billion between 26 March and 31 July 2020, with 76,034 applications submitted in the first eight days.

137,870 credits, covid-19 credits granted in the 128-day application window, 2020-07-31. 76,034 credits, covid-19 credit applications submitted in the first eight days, 2020-04-02. Swiss Federal Council, Covid-19-Solidarbรผrgschaftskredite: Zwischenbericht (29 November 2023), retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

The Federal Council wrote an emergency ordinance in 12 days that let firms self-declare eligibility for a bank loan of up to 10 percent of turnover, which recognised guarantee cooperatives backed 100 percent with federal money, so the banks' existing client relationships and digital channels did the distribution within hours of a request.

Preconditions

  • A constitutional emergency power that lets the executive legislate within days, with parliament ratifying afterwards
  • Existing guarantee cooperatives and a dense banking network that already knew every small firm's turnover
  • A one-form online application and acceptance of fraud risk, policed after payout rather than before

Where else it has been used: Germany, Austria, France and Italy ran state-guaranteed loan schemes at the same time; the Federal Council's own comparison credits the Swiss speed to the digital application step and the public-private set-up rather than to the size of the guarantee.

Limits: The source is the Federal Council evaluating its own programme, and the figures come from the programme's own platform (covid19.easygov.swiss). The construct is the speed at which rules and programmes change; the metric counts credits granted, which measures uptake, and the speed is carried by the dates (ordinance prepared in 12 days, adopted 25 March, credits from 26 March) rather than by a timestamp series comparable across countries. The speed was bought by suspending the normal process: the ordinance rested on the Federal Council's emergency power under Art. 185(3) of the Constitution, and credits were granted on a one-sided self-declaration with only rudimentary checks. The same report puts the upper bound of abusive applications at 5.5 percent of credits if every pending proceeding ended in conviction, with 416 convictions (0.3 percent) by mid-June 2023, and 51 percent of the credit volume (CHF 8.6 billion) still outstanding then, so the final loss is not known; the 0.37 percent loss rate is as of mid-2023. Delivery ran through private banks, so the speed is shared credit between the state and the banking network, and the number does not show how many firms survived because of the credit. The PDF's own prose rounds the first-eight-day figure to 'rund 76 000 gewรคhrten' credits, while the 76,034 is stated as applications submitted ('Antrรคge ... eingereicht'). The source is a 108-page PDF; the figures sit in the summary, Table 1 and section 3.3.

Switzerlandsince 1963still operatingbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Civil protection shelters

Under the shelter-building duty introduced with Switzerland's 1963 civil protection legislation, the Federal Office for Civil Protection reported about nine million shelter places in some 370,000 private and public shelters in 2023, a national coverage rate above 100 percent of the resident population.

9,000,000 shelter places (rounded, about), shelter places in private and public shelters, 2023-08-22. 100 % of permanent resident population (publisher states 'over 100'), national shelter coverage rate, 2023-08-22. Federal Office for Civil Protection (BABS), Informationen rund um die Schutzrรคume, retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

Federal law obliges anyone building housing in a commune short of places to build, equip and maintain a shelter, or pay a replacement contribution (CHF 1,400 per place today) that communes spend on public shelters; cantons keep an assignment plan that allocates every resident a place.

Preconditions

  • Sixty years of building permits passing through one federal rule, so the stock accumulates with the housing stock
  • Communes and cantons with the registers to assign residents to places and update the plan
  • A political consensus, from the Cold War on, that civil defence is a cost property owners carry

Where else it has been used: Finland runs a similar duty and keeps it operating; Germany designated public shelters and then dropped them after 2007, which is the reversal this record should be read against.

Limits: The construct asks for demonstrated capacity to prepare for and recover from major shocks; shelters are preparation for armed conflict and have never been used for that purpose, so the record shows a stock built, not a capacity demonstrated. Both figures are rounded ('rund', 'ca.') on an information page, not a statistical table, and the page is from August 2023; the July 2026 page repeats the 370,000 shelters but not the place count, and describes the goal of one place per resident as 'nahezu erreicht', nearly reached rather than exceeded. 'Over 100 percent' is a national aggregate: the publisher itself says inner cities and peripheral regions still lack places and growing areas need more, so coverage where people live is lower than the headline. The basis is the permanent resident population, so tourists and short-stay residents are not counted. Most places are in private basements used for storage in peacetime and need preparation time before occupancy, and much of the stock dates from the Cold War. The 1963 start is the civil protection act; the separate building-measures act and the construction of the stock followed over decades, and the cost was borne largely by property owners rather than the state.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

Switzerlandsince 1998delivered and closedbears on Large project delivery

Gotthard Base Tunnel

Switzerland built the 57 km Gotthard Base Tunnel under the voter-approved NEAT programme and opened it to commercial traffic on 11 December 2016, on the date set, at a final cost forecast of CHF 9.541 billion against a 1998 cost basis of CHF 6.323 billion, both in 1998 prices.

51 % overrun, 1998 prices, cost growth against the 1998 cost basis, gotthard axis including connections, 2016. 0 months late, commercial opening against the scheduled timetable change, 2016. Swiss Federal Assembly, NEAT supervisory delegation (NAD), report on the oversight of NEAT construction in 2016, BBl 2017 5413, retrieved 2026-10-01.

The move, and what it needed

Voters approved the programme and a ring-fenced rail fund, parliament set a total credit and a standing supervisory delegation that reports every year, and a single-purpose federal subsidiary, AlpTransit Gotthard, built it under that oversight.

Preconditions

  • Direct democracy that ties a ring-fenced fund to one programme
  • A standing parliamentary delegation that publishes cost forecasts every year
  • Tunnelling and rail engineering capacity already in the country

Where else it has been used: The Brenner and Mont Cenis base tunnels copy the engineering but run across two states with EU co-financing, and both have moved their opening dates repeatedly.

Limits: The 51 percent is computed from the NAD's Table 2 (6,323 to 9,541 million francs, 1998 prices) and is not a headline the publisher states. That column mixes true overrun with scope added after 1998, including extra safety works and the Sedrun geology, so a like-for-like overrun would be lower. The cost basis is in real 1998 francs; the nominal bill, about CHF 12.2 billion with inflation, VAT and interest according to the Federal Office of Transport, is larger. On schedule means against the timetable fixed late in the project, which the NAD calls on time, not against the opening years implied by the 1992 vote. The started year is the 1998 financing vote; main construction contracts followed. The source is a PDF and the figures sit in Table 2 and section 1.8.