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Researchers per million people

Observed

Full-time-equivalent researchers engaged in R&D per million inhabitants.

Ingestedfrom World BankfreshJSON export
Current value, World
1,651.59researchers per million people
period 2020
Geography
World (WLD)
Observation date
2020
Unit
researchers per million people
Frequency
annual
Ingested
2026-09-07 05:31 UTC
1-year change--not enough data: no observation for 2019 to compare with 2020
10-year trend+2.69% per yearimproving+30.35%2010 to 2020compound annual growth rate; total +384.53 researchers per million people, from 1,267.05 to 1,651.59 researchers per million people
Historical series

Researchers per million people, World

Observed
1,0001,2001,4001,6001,80020002005201020152020RESEARCHERS PER MILLION PEOPLE1,651.59
6 observations, 2000 to 2020, 5 gaps shown as breaks in the linelatest point emphasised
Data table (6 rows)
Researchers per million people, World: 6 observations from 2000 to 2020, values from 1,080.91 to 1,651.59 researchers per million people. Latest 1,651.59 researchers per million people in 2020. 5 gaps in the series. Full data table below.
PeriodValue (researchers per million people)Source revisionIngested at
20201,651.58522026-07-132026-09-07 05:31 UTC
20181,523.81862026-07-132026-09-07 05:31 UTC
20151,380.78742026-07-132026-09-07 05:31 UTC
20101,267.05362026-07-132026-09-07 05:31 UTC
20051,195.00532026-07-132026-09-07 05:31 UTC
20001,080.9122026-07-132026-09-07 05:31 UTC
176 geographies have observations for this metric
World Bank, World Development Indicators, series SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6
Definition

What this measures

The number of researchers engaged in research and development, expressed as per million inhabitants. Researchers are professionals who conduct research and improve or develop concepts, theories, models, techniques, instrumentation, software or operational methods. R&D covers basic research, applied research and experimental development. Data are in full-time equivalents. Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, compiled by the World Bank.

Direction
higher is better
Geography level
world, regions, countries
Slug
researchers-per-million
Science & Knowledge

Related metrics

All Science & Knowledge metrics

Provenance and methodologysource, series, ingestion, revisions
Classification
Observedpublished by the cited source, ingested without transformation
Source organization
World Bank, World Development Indicators
Series ID
SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6last fetch: ok
Source links
License and attribution
Approved with attribution
World Bank, World Development Indicators, CC BY 4.0
Terms of use
Last source update
2026-07-13(source revision label as published by the provider)
Last ingestion
last successful runfresh
Last run
success2026-09-07 05:31 UTC
Parser version
world-bank-v2/1.0.0
Methodology version
1.0
Quality and confidence
Coverage and definitions vary by country; headcount versus full-time-equivalent reporting is not always consistent. Aggregates can be sparse.
Ingestion rejects values outside 0 to 50,000 researchers per million people.
6 periods with values for this geography, 2000 to 2020.
Revisions
Values reported for the latest period (2020) by each source revision ingested. Earlier rows are never deleted; the newest ingested row is shown as current.
Source revisionValue (researchers per million people)Ingested atStatus
2026-07-131,651.58522026-09-07 05:31 UTCcurrent
No superseded rows for this geography: every period has been ingested once.