Tools and information for researchers of all persuasions
This portal draws on the intelligence gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency and provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union (EU) and provides data covering the EU, regions within EU countries, Candidate countries as well as other significant countries. Its main role is to process and publish comparable statistical information at European level.
Data categories covered include general and regional statistics (including gross domestic product, population and other headline indicators), economy and finance (including detailed breakdowns of gross domestic product and sectoral productivity), population and social conditions (including mortality rates, population projections and labour force surveys), industry, trade and services (including detailed breakdown of economic activity by sector), agriculture and fisheries (including agricultural production and fish catches), international trade (including imports and exports within and outside the EU), transport, environment and energy, and science and technology (including research and development expenditures and researcher employment by gender).
Statistics Explained is an official Eurostat website presenting statistical topics in an easily understandable way. The articles make up an encyclopaedia of European statistics, completed by a statistical glossary clarifying all terms used and provides numerous links to further information and the latest data and metadata and a portal for occasional and regular users.
This annual report contains an exhaustive list of global ‘think tanks’ in many areas of public policy research and analysis, specifically defence and national security, economic policy (domestic and international), education policy, energy and resource policy, environment, food and water security, foreign policy and international affairs, health policy (domestic and international), international development, science and technology, social policy, and transparency and good governance.
The International Development Research Centre is part of Canada’s foreign affairs and development efforts and invests in knowledge, innovation and solutions to improve the lives of people in the developing world. The portal provides access to the organisation’s resource library (research results in the form of various publications, support to researchers and tools for development actors).
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis conducts policy-oriented research into issues that are too large or complex to be solved by a single country or academic discipline. This includes pressing concerns that affect the future of all of humanity such as climate change, energy security, air quality and greenhouse gasses, energy, risk and resilience, water, population aging and sustainable development. Large-scale initiatives are also undertaken such as integrated solutions for water, energy and land, arctic futures, tropical futures, water futures and solutions, and a global energy assessment. The portal also provides access to the institute’s models, tools and data.
The International Labour Organisation’s ILOSTAT portal provides a wide range of employment-related data including total and economically active population, employment, unemployment, hours of work, wages, labour costs, consumer price indices, occupational injuries, strikes and lockouts, and household income and expenditure.
The International Monetary Fund has a wide range of data that is often not available elsewhere. This includes the World Economic Outlook Databases which provides consistent economic forecasts; International Financial Statistics covering gross domestic product, inflation and other economic data; the Principal Global Indicators; the Balance of Payments Statistics; Coordinated Direct Investment Survey; the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey; the Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves and the Direction of Trade Statistics.
The International Trade Centre Trade Map portal provides access to indicators on export performance, international demand, alternative markets and competitive markets, as well as a directory of importing and exporting companies. It covers 220 countries and territories and 5,300 products of the Harmonized System, and trade flows are available from the most aggregated level to the tariff line level. Access to the portal’s market analysis tools is free for registered users in developing countries.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has a wide range of data covering OECD countries and often other G20 countries. The OECD provides foreign direct investment statistics and forecasts, indicators of product market regulation, green growth indicators and total official and private flows of development aid. The OECD iLibrary is the online library of the OECD. It features its books, papers and statistics, and is the gateway to the OECD’s analysis and data. One can also access data visualisations of country comparisons based on OECD data across several categories.
The RAND Corporation is a non-partisan non-profit institution that aims to improve policy and decision-making through rigorous, objective, peer-reviewed and fact-based research and analysis. Its research spans key issues such as energy, education, health care, justice, the environment, international affairs and national security. The portal provides access to RAND’s research areas/topics and published research reports. Most publicly-available research documents published since 1998 are available as free eBook downloads. One can also search over 20,000 RAND publications dating back to 1946.
This site operates as a high-level portal of headline data from the wide range of United Nations (UN) bodies.
The UN’s most visible efforts are conflict resolution and peacekeeping. However, the UN and its agencies are also engaged in a wide array of activities to improve people’s lives around the world. The portal provides an overview of some of these issues in depth, and links to other resources. Issues covered are Africa, ageing, AIDS, atomic energy, big data for the Sustainable Development Goals, children, climate change, decolonisation, democracy, ending poverty, food, gender equality, health, human rights, international law and justice, migration, oceans and the law of the sea, peace and security, population, refugees and water.
The UNdata portal is a web-based ‘portal of portals’ single-entry data service, providing access to international statistical databases. Users can search and download a variety of statistical resources (numerous databases or tables collectively known as ‘datamarts’, containing over 60 million data points) compiled by the UN statistical system and other international agencies. The portal covers a wide range of statistical themes including agriculture, crime, communication, development assistance, education, energy, environment, finance, gender, health, labour market, manufacturing, national accounts, population and migration, science and technology, tourism, transport and trade.
The UNCTADstat portal provides data and statistics on trade and development for countries and products globally with a focus on developing and transition economies.
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs World Population Prospects portal provides a comprehensive set of demographic data and indicators to assess population trends at the global, regional and national levels and to calculate other key indicators for monitoring progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.
The mandate of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is to promote the economic and social development of its member States, foster intra-regional integration and promote international cooperation for Africa’s development. The portal provides access to reports on various topics relevant to Africa.
The World Bank has a database of indicators for development covering agriculture and rural development, health, aid effectiveness, infrastructure, climate change, labour and social protection, economy and growth, poverty, education, the private sector, energy and mining, the public sector, environment, science and technology, external debt, social development, the financial sector and urban development. (See also 5 reasons to check out the World Bank’s new data catalog.)
The World Economic Forum sees itself as the pre-eminent international organisation for public-private cooperation via engaging with political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The portal provides access to many ad-hoc and regular publications such as the annual Global Competitiveness Report, the annual Global Risk Report and others such as the Future of Work Report.
The Strategic Intelligence portal presents information on global issues underpinning economies and industries. Users can visualise and understand 120+ topics and the interconnections and interdependencies between them.
The World Trade Organization deals with the agreed rules of trade between nations with the goal of helping producers of goods and services, exporters and importers conduct their business. The portal provides access to a range of resources such as trade statistics, economic research and publications.
ChartsBin is a web-based data visualisation tool that allows one to create visualisations of one’s own data. The portal also provides access to existing and user-generated data visualisations across several categories, viz. countries, drugs and crime, economic, education, energy, environment, food and agriculture, health, immigration, infrastructure, information and communications technology, people, population, religion, social, society, sports, tourism and work.
The Climate Progress Dashboard monitors 12 indicators to show the progress being made towards decarbonising the global economy.
Gapminder addresses misconceptions about global development and promotes sustainable global development via the provision of web-based data visualisation tools that allows users to explore various global statistics (social, economic and environmental development) at local, national and global levels.
The Google Books Ngram Viewer portal is an online search engine that charts the frequencies of any set of comma-delimited search strings using a yearly count of n-grams found in Google Books sources printed between 1500 and 2008.
The Atlas of Economic Complexity is a data visualisation tool that allows one to explore global trade flows across markets, track these dynamics over time and discover new growth opportunities for countries. The Atlas places the industrial capabilities and know-how of a country at the heart of its growth prospects, where the diversity and complexity of existing capabilities heavily influence how growth happens. The tool can assist determining what countries import and export, how trade has evolved over time, the drivers of export growth, which new industries are likely to emerge (and which disappear) in a given geography and what the gross domestic product growth prospects of a country are in the next 5-10 years.
The How Much portal provides access to money-related visualisations, mostly for the United States.
Our World in Data brings together data and research on the significant, long-run trends reshaping the world. The portal consists of interactive data visualisations and summaries of the scientific literature for selected topics. The entries include health, population growth, education, culture, violence, political power and human rights, war and peace, material prosperity and poverty, technology, food and hunger and humanity’s impact on the environment.
The Population Pyramid portal provides access to interactive population pyramids of the world back to 1950 using United Nations data.
Raconteur is a media company based in the United Kingdom that aims to produce high-quality journalistic outputs. The portal provides access to infographics and special reports across several economic and social areas (not just the United Kingdom).
The StatCounter GlobalStats portal provides data and interactive charts for the ‘tech’ industry, including the Internet, social media and digital platforms.
The Pudding portal allows one to visualise global population growth and decline over time using a Google Earth-type tool.
The Visual Capitalist portal provides access to data visualisations related to global trends (money, markets, technology, etc.)
The China Africa Research Initiative promotes evidence-based understanding of the relations between China and African countries through high-quality data collection, field research, conferences and collaboration. The portal provides access to various publications and downloadable data sets on the topic.
Data USA is a comprehensive website and visualisation engine of public United States government data, which contains centralised data from multiple government sources. The portal allows one to map, compare and download data, and the Viz Builder tool allows one to build custom visualisations.
The National Bureau of Statistics of China portal provides access to a wide range of statistics covering China and its regions, often using international classifications or statistical concepts allowing direct comparison with other countries’ statistics.
The Government Investment Incentives website is the official portal for the South African government’s investment schemes.
The Industrial Development Corporation is a national development finance institution established to promote economic growth and industrial development via promoting entrepreneurship through supporting the establishment of competitive industries and enterprises. The organisation’s primary objectives are to contribute to the generation of balanced, sustainable economic growth in Africa and to the economic empowerment of the South African population. The portal provides access to the organisation’s economic, sectoral and industrial research reports.
Vulekamali is an easily accessible online budget data portal for the South African public sector. It provides access to various budget-related documents for national and provincial government, as well as downloadable data sets.
The Small Business Institute is a lobby and advocacy group for small business in South Africa. The portal provides access to small business-related reports and news.
The South African Reserve Bank’s primary purpose is to achieve and maintain price stability in the interest of balanced and sustainable economic growth. The portal provides access to the organisation’s various economic research outputs, reports, statistics and data. The on-line statistical query section for historical macroeconomic timeseries information is a useful feature.
Statistics South Africa is the country’s official statistics agency publishes various statistical data on the economy and society.
Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies is a not-for-profit economic research organisation based focusing on trade and industrial policy, sustainable growth, inequality and economic inclusion. The organisation undertakes research and analysis and facilitates policy development, dialogue and capacity building. The portal affords access to policy research outputs and policy briefs.
The World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa is dedicated to protecting South Africa’s natural heritage, including plants, animals and people. The portal provides access to the organisation’s research publications.
The African Technology Policy Studies Network is a multi-disciplinary network of researchers, private sector actors, policy-makers and civil society actors promoting the generation, dissemination, use and mastery of science, technology and innovation for African development, environmental sustainability and global inclusion. The organisation’s mission is to improve the quality of science, technology and innovation research, policy and practice for sustainable development in Africa, by Africans and for Africa. The portal’s Publications section includes working papers, research papers, special papers, ‘technopolicy’ briefs and other reports for policy-makers.
Board of Innovation is an innovation-focused consultancy that describes itself as a “global business design agency”. Its services include business design, talent development and strategy. The portal provides free access to innovation-related guides, tools and webinars.
The Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators is a statistical and policy research unit of the Human Sciences Research Council. The Centre undertakes national surveys on research and development, innovation and technology transfer in South Africa, mostly for the Department of Higher Education, Science and Technology (DHEST).
This portal provides access to policy briefs written by economists who believe that mainstream (orthodox) economics should serve to create inclusive prosperity, not just wealth-based prosperity for the few. “Inclusive” means that the interest of all people should be considered, and “prosperity” is considered broadly, including non-monetary sources of well-being such as health, climate change and political rights.
The Joint Research Centre is the European Commission’s science and knowledge service. It employs scientists to carry out research in order to provide independent scientific advice and support to European Union policy. The portal’s Research section has policy information across ten scientific areas (agriculture and food security, economic and monetary union, energy and transport, environment and climate change, health and consumer protection, information society, innovation and growth, nuclear safety and security, safety and security, and standards). The portal’s Knowledge section has links to the various knowledge and competence centres (e.g. the bio-economy and tools for policy-making), various scientific tools and data sets, and access to the centre’s publications.
The Research and Innovation Observatory monitors and analyses research and innovation developments at country and European Union levels to support better policy making in Europe. The portal is a reference and source of information for European and national policy makers as well as other stakeholders in the field of research and innovation policy. It delivers analysis, insights, statistical data and best practices on designing, implementing and evaluating research and innovation policy at European Union and national levels.
The Global Observatory of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Instruments portal presents a methodological tool to map national science, technology and innovation landscapes and analyse associated policies and their implementation. The open-access platform offers databases with graphic and analytical tools for the use of decision-makers, parliamentarians, universities, knowledge brokers, companies, specialists and the general public, with a complete set of diverse policy information.
The Innovation Bridge portal is an online technology matchmaking platform that aims to create linkages and networks between commercialisation funding partners and researchers, innovators, industry and technology developers in South Africa. The portal lists the main funding schemes for research, development and innovation in South Africa, as well as available technologies across several technology readiness levels.
The Innovation Policy Platform is a web-based interactive space that provides easy access to knowledge, learning resources, indicators and communities of practice on the design, implementation and evaluation of innovation policies. The portal helps users learn how innovation systems operate, identify good practices across different countries, conduct statistical benchmarking and devise and apply effective policy solutions.
The Millennium Project is a global participatory think tank with the purpose of improving humanity’s prospects for building a better future via improved thinking about the future for better decision-making today. The initiatives of the Millennium Project are the annual State of the Future publication, the Global Futures Intelligence System, Futures Research Methodologies toolkit and special studies. (Access only on a paid/subscription basis.) There is also a South African node.
The National Science, Technology and Innovation Information Portal is a repository of data and information for the South African National System of Innovation. The portal consists of interactive data visualisations based on the annual National Research and Development Surveys, the main policies, strategies and instruments, and policy briefs and articles on various topics.
Nesta is a United Kingdom-based innovation agency. Its services include defining a clear vision for innovation and how to implement it, incorporating innovation policy and strategy, organisational design and research plans. The portal provides access to various tools and resources for public sector innovation and innovation policy.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has particular strengths in research and development and patent data as it developed the Frascati Manual and the Oslo Manual which specify data definitions and classifications for these areas. The OECD’s Main Science and Technology Indicators database provides a set of indicators that reflect the level and structure of efforts in the field of science and technology undertaken from 1981 onwards by OECD Member countries and other non-member economies, including South Africa. The indicators cover the resources devoted to research and development, patent families and international trade in research and development-intensive industries. The Scientometrics section provides access to information on the OECD’s work on scientometrics (quantitative study of science, communication in science and science policy) and bibliometrics (the statistical analysis of books, articles or other publications).
The Observatory for Public Sector Innovation is a global forum for public sector innovation. The portal provides access to a compendium of toolkits for public sector innovation and transformation.
RAND’s science and technology research area portal provides access to various types of outputs (blogs, briefs, reports, etc.) across more than 80 sub-topics, from aeronautics to unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Research Information Management System project covers public funding within South Africa’s nine science councils (public research organisations) and 23 of its higher education institutions. The Research Administration System allows for the administration of research through a modularised information and communications technology-based system (expertise management, grant and contracts management, compliance management and administrative modules for technology transfer and reporting research outputs). The Business Intelligence Warehouse allows institutions to store information pertaining to publicly-funded research in a partitioned and confidential environment, allowing institutions to benchmark against one another, and providing the Department of Science and Technology with a view of the impact of publicly-funded research and the return on investment. (The portal is not publicly available. Access to the portal needs to be requested via the Department.)
Roadmapping is an approach and method for supporting the development of strategy and innovation, with application at the business, corporate, sector and national levels. The portal provides access to various roadmapping resources, including templates.
The ScienceGeist portal provides access to a curated collection of articles on science policy issues.
The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association is the industry body for private equity and venture capital asset classes in Southern Africa. The portal provides access to the association’s annual Venture Capital Industry Survey and Private Equity Industry Survey, amongst other resources.
The United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation Institute for Statistics is the official source of internationally-comparable data on education, literacy, science and technology, culture and communication. The organisation has compiled over 1,000 indicators from more than 200 countries and territories in collaboration with international organisations.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Commission on science and technology for Development acts as a forum for the examination of science and technology questions and their implications for development; the advancement of understanding on science and technology policies, particularly in respect of developing countries; and the formulation of recommendations and guidelines on science and technology matters within the United Nations system. The portal provides access to various reports and minutes of meetings.
The Washington Center for Equitable Growth is a non-profit research and grant-making organisation that aims to promote the use of evidence for policy-making for economic growth. The organisation is United States-focused, and its focus is on competition, families, inequality and mobility, labour, and tax and macroeconomics. The portal provides access to working papers on the links between inequality and economic growth.
arXive (pronounced ‘archive’) is a repository of moderated (but not peer-reviewed) electronic preprints, consisting of scientific papers in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, electrical engineering, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, mathematical finance and economics.
BioMed Central is a publisher of science, technology and medicine journals, incorporating the biomedicine, physical sciences, mathematics and engineering disciplines.
Clarivate Analytics owns and operates a collection of subscription-based services focused largely on analytics, including scientific and academic research.
CyberLeninka is a non-profit Russian open access scientific library, covering the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, engineering and technology.
De Gruyter is an independent academic publisher of peer-reviewed open access scholarly books and journals.
Elsevier is a Dutch information and analytics company and one of the world’s major providers of scientific, technical and medical information.
Hindawi is a commercial publisher of peer-reviewed open access scientific, technical and medical literature.
PLOS (Public Library of Science) is a scientific (life sciences) and medical open access publishing venture.
ResearchGate is a professional network for scientists and researchers. The portal is also used to share research outputs.
SSRN (formerly Social Science Research Network) is an open-access online preprint community. The portal provides access to scientific papers primarily in social sciences, including economics, law, corporate governance and humanities. Most of the papers are available to download for free.
The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission undertakes the registration of companies, cooperatives and intellectual property in South Africa. The portal allows for basic searches (free and commercial) across patents, designs, copyrights and trademarks.
The European Patent Office’s statistics portal provides basic statistics on patent applications and granted patents by country, technology area and year for submitted patents. Espacenet offers free access to information about inventions and technical developments from 1836 to date. PATSTAT is a patent intelligence tool that allows one to perform sophisticated statistical analyses of bibliographical and legal status patent data.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is the federal agency for granting United States patents and registering trademarks. The portal allows searches to be conducted on granted patents and patent applications.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation is a global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information and cooperation. The PATENTSCOPE database provides access to international Patent Cooperation Treaty applications in full text format on the day of publication, as well as to patent documents of participating national and regional patent offices. Downloadable international intellectual property data is available via the Statistics Data Centre.
The Green Technology Database portal provides data and visualisation concerning the distribution of environmental patenting activity by countries, over time and by domain of specialisation. ‘Green technology’ patent data can be analysed at various levels of geographical (i.e. metropolitan areas, regions, state, country) and of green domain (e.g. renewable energy generation).
The Global Innovation Index portal provides access to detailed metrics concerning the innovation performance of 127 countries and economies around the world. Its 81 indicators explore a broad vision of innovation, including political environment, education, infrastructure and business sophistication. The portal provides access to detailed country reports as well as downloadable data sets.
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor studies global entrepreneurial behaviour and attitudes of individuals as well as the national context and how this impacts entrepreneurship. Granular data are provided to the public three years after publication. The web portal provides visualisation of data analysis, country economic profiles and annual global reports.
The objective of the African Development Bank Group is to spur sustainable economic development and social progress in its regional member countries, thus contributing to poverty reduction. The portal provides access to statistical data on all components of development and to research outputs on priority issues related to African social and economic development, with particular emphasis on growth, poverty reduction and accelerating the process of regional economic integration.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are targets for global development adopted in September 2015, set to be achieved by 2030. The Sustainable Development Goal Tracker presents data across all available indicators from the Our World in Data database, using official statistics from the United Nations and other international organisations, and tracks global progress towards the goals.
The portal provides access to research outputs in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals relevant to South Africa and Africa.
The United Nations Global Sustainable Development Goal Indicator Database portal provides access to data compiled through the United Nations system in preparation for the Secretary-General’s annual report on progress towards the goals.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation portal provides access to a range of statistics relating to Sustainable Development Goal 9 which covers the need to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network mobilises global scientific and technological expertise to promote practical solutions for sustainable development, including the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement. The portal provides access to sustainable development and related reports.
Carbon Brief covers developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy and provides data-driven articles and graphics to help improve the understanding of climate change. The portal has an extensive infographics and interactive data visualisation section, as well as country profiles.
The Global Footprint Network portal provides access to data, metrics, reports and tools (including data visualisation and interactive maps) to support decision-making for policies to reduce the impact of humans on the environment for more than 200 countries, territories and regions.
The Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management is a joint initiative of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Germany in response to the challenges of global climate change. The Open Access Data Centre aims to support climate change adaptation by making data, information and knowledge openly available.
The World Bank’s Climate Change Knowledge Portal provides access to comprehensive global, regional, and country data related to climate change and development.
The World Meteorological Organization focuses on international cooperation in the delivery and use of high-quality, authoritative weather, climate, hydrological (the water cycle) and related environmental services by its members, to improve the well-being of societies of all nations. The portals provide access to various reports relating to meteorology and related topics.
The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organisation, working in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. The organisation aims to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. Its work spans climate and energy, food, forests, freshwater, oceans, wildlife and biodiversity. Also covered are finance, governance and markets, key drivers of environmental problems. The portal provides access to various publications and reports
The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy produces independent, multi-disciplinary research to advance the health and well-being of human populations in the United States and around the world for better decision-making in health policy.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services and is the national public health institute of the United States. Its main goal is to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability in the United States and internationally. The portal provides access to data and statistics on communicable and non-communicable diseases.
The Global Health Data Exchange is a data catalogue created and supported by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent global health research centre at the University of Washington. The Institution provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them. The information is freely available for policymakers.
The World Health Organisation Global Health Observatory provides data and analyses on global health priorities, situations and trends.
The Food and Agriculture Organization is a United Nations agency that aims to defeat hunger. Its goal is food security for all and ensuring people have access to high-quality food for active, healthy lives. The organisation’s strategic objectives are to help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition; make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable; reduce rural poverty; enable inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems; and increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises. The portal provides access to country profiles, publications and yearbooks, as well as and access to various databases and a catalogue of data sources.
The International Energy Agency portal provides access to detailed data and forecasts on energy sources and use. This includes details of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions and detailed estimates of energy usage and reserves by type.
The World Resource Institute focuses on seven urgent global challenges that must be addressed to reduce poverty, grow economies and protect natural systems, namely climate, energy, food, forests, water, sustainable cities and the ocean. The portal makes available maps, charts, data sets, infographics and other visual resources, and provides access to various data platforms for decision-making.
The Centre for the Study of Existential Risks focuses on the study and mitigation of existential risks associated with emerging technologies and human activity, and to develop a methodological toolkit to aid in identifying and evaluating future extreme risks. Work focuses on managing extreme technological risks, global catastrophic biological risks, extreme risks and the global environment, and risks from artificial intelligence. The portal provides access to various resources (publications, videos, reports, etc.)
The European Commission’s Public Opinion Eurobarometer portal provides access to data and reports on public attitudes to a wide range of topics including the European Union, climate change, space exploration, science and genetic modification of crops.
Freedom House works to defend human rights and promote democratic change, with a focus on political rights and civil liberties. The organisation publishes an annual Freedom in the World report, a comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties, Freedom on the Net report, an annual survey and analysis of global internet and digital media freedom, and other regular and ad-hoc reports.
The Future of Life Institute is a volunteer-run research and outreach organisation that works to mitigate existential risks facing humanity, particularly existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence, but also from biotechnology, nuclear weapons and climate change. The portal provides access to articles and other news items.
The Great Transition Initiative is an international network for the exploration of concepts, strategies and visions for a transition to a future of enriched lives, human solidarity and a resilient biosphere. The portal provides access to data projections (in interactive and tabular formats) and to future scenarios in relation to possible futures (viz. Conventional Worlds, Barbarization and Great Transitions).
The Happy Planet Index presents an alternative to economic growth as a measure of a country’s success and instead measures a country’s sustainable well-being. The index is constructed based on data which measures a country’s life expectancy, well-being, ecological footprint and inequality. The portal provides access to an interactive world map as well as to downloadable data sets.
The HumanProgress.org project seeks to address the wide gap between the reality of human experience (characterised by incremental improvements) and public perception (which tends to be negative about the current state of the world and sceptical about humanity’s future prospects). The portal presents accessible empirical data on a wide variety of topics relating to progress.
The Pew Research Global Attitudes Project portal provides access to a range of international attitudes surveys covering issues such as climate change, attitudes towards the United States, the use of social media, life satisfaction and income inequality. The organisation permits the granular data to be downloaded for further analysis two years after reports are published.
Transparency International provides a range of international data comparing perceptions of corruption. The Corruption Perceptions Index measures how corrupt national public sectors are perceived to be. The Global Corruption Barometer measures views and experiences of corruption across the world. The Bribe Payer Index ranks the wealthiest countries by their firms’ propensity to pay bribes.