How the 311 Future Readiness Index works
Version 0.1, pilot edition, October 2026. This page sets out exactly what the index measures, where every number comes from and how scores are calculated, so anyone can check or reproduce the results.
What it measures
The index ranks how strongly countries, and soon universities, are building the technologies that will shape the next ten years. It is not a measure of overall prestige or teaching quality. It combines investment, talent, invention, frontier research, research excellence, industry links and high-tech trade.
Indicators, sources and weights (countries)
| Pillar | Indicator | Source | Weight | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R&D investment | Gross domestic spending on R&D, % of GDP | World Bank (UNESCO Institute for Statistics) | 18% | Most recent year since 2015 |
| Research talent | Researchers per million people | World Bank (UNESCO) | 13% | Log scale; most recent since 2015 |
| Invention | Resident patent applications per million people | World Bank (WIPO) | 13% | Log scale |
| Research output | Research papers per million people, 2021 to 2025 | OpenAlex | 5% | Log scale |
| Research output | Total research papers, 2021 to 2025 | OpenAlex | 5% | Log scale |
| Frontier research | Papers in 12 frontier-technology fields, 2021 to 2025 | OpenAlex | 5% | Log scale |
| Frontier focus | Share of papers in frontier-technology fields | OpenAlex | 4% | |
| Research excellence | Share of papers in the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year, 2021 to 2023 | OpenAlex (field-normalised) | 10% | |
| Industry-science links | Share of papers with a company co-author | OpenAlex | 9% | |
| High-tech trade | High-technology exports, % of manufactured exports | World Bank (UN Comtrade) | 9% | Most recent since 2015 |
| Momentum | Growth in papers, 2021 to 2025 versus 2016 to 2020 | OpenAlex | 9% |
Frontier-technology fields: Artificial intelligence; computer vision; biotechnology; genetics; biomedical engineering; condensed matter physics; atomic, molecular and optical physics (including quantum); electrical and electronic engineering (including semiconductors); aerospace engineering; renewable energy; materials chemistry; control and systems engineering (including robotics).
How scores are calculated
Each indicator is trimmed at the 2nd and 98th percentiles to stop extreme values dominating, put on a log scale where noted, and rescaled from 0 to 100 across all eligible countries. A country's score is the weighted average of its indicators. When an indicator is missing, its weight is shared across the indicators that are available, and the gap is shown as n/a in the table.
Who is included
Countries and territories with at least one million people, at least 20,000 research papers between 2021 and 2025, and recent data for at least two of the four World Bank indicators. 86 met these rules in this edition. Taiwan is not yet included because the World Bank does not report its data; we plan to add official national statistics in the next edition.
How certain the ranks are
We recalculate the index 1,000 times with every weight varied at random by up to 25% either way. The "likely rank" column shows the range that 90% of those runs fall into. A narrow range means the position is robust; a wide range means small changes in weighting could move it.
Universities (in progress)
The university ranking covers the 403 largest and most-cited research universities in OpenAlex. It uses research scale, field-normalised excellence (share of papers in the top 10% for their field), frontier-technology output and focus, and industry co-authorship. It publishes once the field-normalised excellence data is complete for every university, because simpler citation counts favour some systems unfairly.
Independence
- No organisation can pay to be included, ranked or removed.
- The method, weights and data are published in full, and the data can be downloaded.
- Errors are corrected openly, with a dated note.
- An independent advisory panel will review the method before the first full edition.
Known limitations
- Research databases count papers, not their real-world use, and some countries publish more in national journals that are less well indexed.
- World Bank figures lag by one to five years, and the most recent year differs by country.
- Patent applications are counted at national offices, so they reflect filing habits as well as inventiveness.
- This pilot uses free data only. Startup and venture investment data will be added in a later edition.
Data
The full country dataset is available to clients on request. Ask us about it.
Data retrieved 2 October 2026 from the World Bank open data API and OpenAlex.