Skip to content
NCBNational Capability Benchmark
Navigate with โ†‘ โ†“Enter to openEsc to close

Challenge the benchmark

Choose a score and give the benchmark a specific reason to reconsider it.

When you submit, the form attaches the current score and confidence for the country and capability you chose.

Submissions are public and start as awaiting review. A maintainer can add a response and signature after review.

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.

Narrow the list

6 of 742 deliveries

Anticipation

1 delivery linked to Government foresight capacity.

Norwaysince 1999still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity

Teknologiraadet, the Norwegian Board of Technology

Norway's Board of Technology, an independent public advisory body created in 1999 on the Storting's initiative that also serves as secretariat for the Storting's technology group, delivered eight publications and held eleven meetings, four of them for the Storting's technology group, in 2025 on operating income of NOK 13.8 million.

8 publications, publications delivered, 2025. 13.8 million NOK, operating income, 2025. Teknologiraadet, Aarsrapport for 2025 til Naerings- og fiskeridepartementet, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The government appoints a 15-member council for four-year terms with a small independent secretariat that chooses its own projects, convenes expert groups and lay panels, and briefs the Storting through a cross-party technology group it services.

Preconditions

  • A parliament that wants an independent source of technology advice and a cross-party group to receive it
  • A stable budget line outside any single policy ministry
  • A council free to choose topics, set in its statutes

Where else it has been used: Denmark's equivalent body, also called Teknologiraadet, was defunded and abolished in 2012 (dnk-teknologiraadet); the Norwegian one survived on a similar design.

Limits: The board reports on itself to its parent ministry; the figures are in a 41-page PDF, publications and meetings on PDF page 5 and income on page 3. It is a technology assessment body more than a strategic foresight unit, though its 2025 work included a project on strategic foresight methods and an annual trend report for the Storting. Publication counts measure output, not influence on law or budgets. It is small: the secretariat had eight permanent staff in 2025. Its funding line moved in 2025 from the trade ministry's research council chapter to the research council's allocation letter from the education ministry, which the report describes as an administrative change; continuity since 1999 is stated on the board's own about page (https://teknologiradet.no/forsiden/om-oss/), not in an external evaluation.

Coordination

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

Norwaysince 2007still operatingbears on University-industry collaboration

Senter for forskningsdrevet innovasjon (SFI), Centres for Research-based Innovation

The Research Council of Norway allocated 354 million kroner in 2025 to its Centres for Research-based Innovation, eight-year consortia of research institutions, companies and public bodies whose business and public-sector partners must co-finance at least half the cost, and in December 2025 named eight new centres with 98 business partners and 22 public-sector partners.

354 million Norwegian kroner, funding allocated to the sfi centres, 2025. 98 business partners, business partners in the eight sfi centres announced in december 2025, 2025-12-15. Norges forskningsrรฅd (Research Council of Norway), programme page 'Sentre for forskningsdrevet innovasjon (SFI)', retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The research council funds eight-year centres in which a university or institute and research-active firms run a shared programme, with the council paying up to half and the partners the rest, and renews the portfolio in generations through open competitions.

Preconditions

  • Research-active firms in sectors such as energy, maritime and seafood that can co-fund long programmes
  • A research council with a stable budget line for long centre grants
  • Host institutions with the administration to manage multi-partner consortia

Where else it has been used: The SFI model mirrors competence centre schemes in Sweden and Austria (aut-comet); Norway pairs it with Centres of Excellence (SFF) for basic research, keeping the two instruments separate.

Limits: The council reports on its own scheme. The 354 million kroner is a funding figure shown as a number block on the programme page, not a count of collaborations, and the page gives no partner count for the centres running in 2025; the same page lists 22 centres under SFI-IV (2020-2028) and 17 under SFI-III (2015-2023), counted by us from the lists. The partner figures come from a separate council news item of 15 December 2025 (https://www.forskningsradet.no/nyheter/2025/nye-forskningssentre-innovasjon/), describe centres that were only being contracted, and the centres also include 16 research institutions, 17 international research partners and 13 foreign companies. Host institutions include research institutes such as SINTEF, not only universities. The 2007 start is from the history of the scheme (first centres appointed 2006, operating 2007) and is not stated on the cited page. Nothing here measures the innovation the centres produced.

Norwaysince 2005still operatingbears on Public-private collaboration

OPS road projects of the Norwegian Public Roads Administration

The Norwegian Public Roads Administration has delivered four road sections as public-private partnerships (OPS) now in operation, opened in 2005, 2006, 2009 and July 2020, each run by a private company for 20 to 25 years, and had two more under planning or construction in 2026, Rv. 555 Sotrasambandet and E10/Rv. 85 Tjeldsund to Langvassbukt.

4 projects, ops road projects completed and in operation, 2026-10. 2 projects, ops road projects in planning or under construction, 2026-10. Statens vegvesen, Vรฅre OPS-prosjekter, retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

Parliament designates a road section for OPS, the roads administration tenders it, and a private company plans, builds, finances, operates and maintains the section for 20 to 25 years against state payments, after which it returns to the state.

Preconditions

  • A parliament willing to commit payments decades ahead project by project
  • Domestic contractors and financiers able to take on whole-life road risk
  • A roads agency that can write performance requirements instead of designs

Where else it has been used: Sweden's Trafikverket is studying OPS projects for its 2026 to 2037 plan; Norway's experience shows a model that survives but stays a small share of road building.

Limits: The page is the roads administration's own list with no date of update, so the asOf is the retrieval date. It gives no cost, schedule or value-for-money figure, so the record shows frequency and duration, not performance. Six projects in two decades is a small programme for a country that builds many roads, and it moved in fits: three sections opened between 2005 and 2009, then nothing opened until 2020, after the transport ministry asked the agency in 2015 to use the model on three new projects (stated on the agency's OPS page, https://www.vegvesen.no/vegprosjekter/prosess/ops-ppp/); the list does not say what became of each of those three. The page says parliament decides which projects use OPS, so the count reflects political choices project by project. Projects by Nye Veier, the state road company, are not on this list.

Learning

1 delivery linked to Adult learning participation.

Norwaysince 2002still operatingbears on Adult learning participation

Grunnskoleopplรฆring for voksne, municipal primary and lower secondary education for adults

Norway's municipalities, delivering the statutory right of adults to primary and lower secondary education, taught 10,223 adult participants in 2025, 7,588 in ordinary basic education, 2,435 in special education and 200 in both, against a high of 13,946 in 2019.

10,223 participants, number of participants in adult training (primary and lower secondary education and special education for adults), the whole country, 2025. 13,946 participants, same count in the highest year of the series, 2019. Statistisk sentralbyrรฅ (Statistics Norway), StatBank table 12237 'Participants in adult training, by region, contents and year' (KOSTRA municipal reporting), retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

National law gives every adult who lacks it a right to primary and lower secondary education, and the municipality must provide it free, reporting participants to the national municipal statistics system.

Preconditions

  • A statutory individual right that municipalities must honour regardless of budget
  • Municipal adult education centres, often combined with Norwegian language teaching for immigrants
  • A common municipal reporting system (KOSTRA) that counts participants the same way everywhere

Where else it has been used: Sweden's Komvux and Estonia's adult gymnasiums (est-adult-gymnasiums) rest on the same idea of a legal right to second-chance schooling; Norway's version is small because few native-born adults lack compulsory schooling.

Limits: The URL is the table's API endpoint; the national row ('EAK The whole country') is returned by a POST query on it, or can be read in the StatBank interface for table 12237. The counts come from municipalities' own KOSTRA reports. They cover only compulsory-level schooling for adults (and special education), a small part of adult learning: upper secondary education for adults, vocational training, study associations and employer training are outside it, and it reaches about 10,000 people in a population of 5.6 million. Most ordinary participants are recent immigrants and refugees completing basic schooling, so the series follows arrivals: the rise to 2019 tracks the 2015 to 2016 refugee intake and the fall since then reflects fewer such learners as much as any change in provision, which is why the record is not classed as an erosion. The 2002 start is the year the adult right to primary and lower secondary education took effect, not stated in the table, and the series itself starts in 2015.

Experimentation

1 delivery linked to Firms through regulatory sandboxes.

Norwaysince 2020still operatingbears on Firms through regulatory sandboxes

Datatilsynet's regulatory sandbox for privacy-friendly innovation

Norway's data protection authority ran eight sandbox projects at the end of 2025, five of them jointly with the Financial Supervisory Authority on data sharing against financial crime, and completed two projects (Akershus University Hospital and Mobai's SALT biometric verification) during the year.

8 projects, sandbox projects in progress at year end, 2025-12-31. 2 projects, sandbox projects completed during the year, 2025. Datatilsynet, Aarsrapport for 2025, chapter 'Prioritert omraade II, Regulatorisk sandkasse', retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The data protection authority takes a few projects a year into a structured dialogue on how privacy law applies to a new use of data, then publishes a final report and podcast so the answer reaches the whole sector, and in 2025 opened a joint sandbox with the financial supervisor.

Preconditions

  • A ministry mandate and allocation letter that name the sandbox as a priority area
  • Regulators willing to give advance interpretations in public
  • Applicants whose question is general enough that a published answer helps others

Where else it has been used: Denmark's data protection authority opened a similar AI sandbox in 2024 (dnk-ai-sandkasse).

Limits: The authority reports on its own sandbox. It gives dialogue-based guidance and no exemption from law, so it is a controlled advisory regime rather than a derogation sandbox. Participants include public bodies (a hospital) and banks working as a group, so projects are not firms. The report is internally inconsistent on the joint financial sandbox: the chapter says five projects, the director's foreword in the PDF version (https://www.datatilsynet.no/contentassets/112abf21f900417f859c66c8f7d838de/datatilsynets-arsrapport-for-2025.pdf) says four were taken in; Finanstilsynet's own announcement of 2025 names five. The joint projects are counted here and are not added again from Finanstilsynet. Finanstilsynet's separate fintech sandbox admitted few firms (two of 12 applicants in the first pool in 2020, then single firms such as Abendum, R8Me and Qbig) and was not summed in. The sandbox is staffed by one full-time coordinator, per the same PDF, which limits its scale. The 2020 start is from the authority's earlier evaluation material, not read today.

Adaptability

1 delivery linked to Disaster preparedness and recovery.

Norwaysince 1950still operatingbears on Disaster preparedness and recovery

Civil defence public warning sirens (tyfoner) and their twice-yearly test

The Norwegian Civil Defence tested 1,130 public warning sirens in its national warning test on 14 January 2026 and reported an uptime of 89 percent, which it called a clear improvement on the January 2025 test and a slight fall from the June 2025 test.

89 %, uptime of public warning sirens in the national warning test, 2026-01-14. 1,130 installations, public warning siren installations tested, 2026-01-14. Sivilforsvaret (Norwegian Civil Defence, under the Directorate for Civil Protection), news item 'Resultater etter varslingsprรธven', retrieved 2026-10-02.

The move, and what it needed

The national civil defence keeps a network of public warning sirens in populated areas and sounds every one of them in a national test twice a year, publishing the share that worked and following up each failure.

Preconditions

  • A state civil defence organisation that owns and maintains the sirens rather than leaving them to municipalities
  • A central control system able to trigger and log every installation at once
  • Regular public tests, which double as a reminder of the signals

Where else it has been used: Germany dismantled its federal siren network after the Cold War (deu-siren-network) and is rebuilding it; Norway kept its network under the civil defence and tests it on a fixed calendar.

Limits: The civil defence reports on its own system, in a short news item that does not print the publication date; the test date is given as Wednesday 14 January and the comparison with 'January 2025' places it in 2026. A test is not a shock: the record shows that the warning hardware works on a set day, not that people were warned, sheltered or evacuated in a real event. Uptime of 89 percent means roughly one installation in nine failed, mostly from frost and cold according to the item, and installations disconnected for maintenance or relocation were not tested and are not in the denominator, which flatters the figure. The item does not give the earlier test percentages it compares with, nor the share of the population within siren range. Norway has had a cell broadcast system (nรธdvarsel) since 2024, which this figure does not cover. The started year is an approximation for the post-war civil defence siren network and was not read at the cited page.