Bulgaria

Strongest usable evidence: Coordination, at 83.1. Raise Learning first, at 32.6. Building needs more evidence: confidence is 0.41.

Raise, lowest first

Raise, lowest first
Dimension	Confidence	Score
Learning	0.54	32.6

Measure before managing

Measure before managing
Dimension	Confidence	Score
Building	0.41	11.0
Experimentation	0.41	32.2
Shared Purpose	0.42	39.8

These lists are the country's capability agenda, computed from the scores. Read the full agenda. It names comparable evidence from other countries and the 18 gaps in the registry.

Why this country is included: Added in the 9.0.0 completion, which takes every country of a million people or more that is measurable in all nine capabilities.

Download this country as CSV

Anticipation55.4Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?

BulgariaCompare with

Read Bulgaria beside up to three other countries, down to the indicator behind every row.

Usable or good evidence
Thin evidence, hollow point. The dashes open further as confidence falls.
The point still sits at the score, because confidence never moves it.
Click any axis to see every country on that dimension.

A score from 0 to 100 is a position inside the frame that all the benchmark countries set: zero is the weakest on a dimension and 100 is the strongest. A score of 10 puts a country near the floor of that frame and does not mean 10 percent of a capability.

Bulgaria dimension summary

Coordination	Coordination How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.48	3 of 5	1.00	no trend	58.0	-25.1
Adaptability	Adaptability How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.62	4 of 6	1.00	no trend	65.0	-15.6
Trust	Trust How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.54	5 of 7	0.92	no trend	42.0	-18.6
Agency	Agency How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.63	4 of 5	0.85	no trend	52.0	-3.8
Anticipation	Anticipation How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.46	2 of 4	0.96	+15.9(2)	47.0	-8.4
Shared Purpose	Shared Purpose To what extent can people imagine themselves as participants in a common project? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.42	3 of 6	0.92	+2.0(2)	36.0	-3.8
Learning	Learning How effectively does the country acquire, distribute, and update knowledge? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.54	3 of 4	0.78	no trend	40.0	+7.4
Experimentation	Experimentation How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.41	4 of 9	1.00	-5.2(3)	33.0	+0.8
Building	Building How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems? Scores use one 0 to 100 scale for all countries. Each flag is a country, and the ring around it carries how well evidenced that score is. The band beside each score in the list shows its evidence level, and the last column shows the trend and the number of indicators behind it. Loading…	0.41	3 of 6	0.86	+5.0(2)	37.0	+26.0

How to read this page

Each dimension has a score from 0 to 100. It shows where this country sits among all 125 countries in the comparison frame, not a percentage. Confidence sits beside the score. A dashed radar edge and hollow point mean the evidence is thin. The records below show each indicator, its raw value, year and source.

A panel estimate, when present, is a separate judgment about what the indicators miss. It does not change the score or confidence. The panel's provenance is shown beside the estimate.

direct capability measuredirect capability measure Measures the thing itself.
capability inputcapability input Measures something that supports the capability.
downstream outcomedownstream outcome Measures a result that usually follows from the capability.
perception proxyperception proxy Records what people or experts say, not what they did.

Confidence

very thin0.00 to 0.25
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
thin0.25 to 0.45
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
usable0.45 to 0.65
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
good0.65 and above
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.

A row marked no dataset exists is a gap: the benchmark wants data that nobody publishes. A retired row has a source this project chose not to use. Both reduce confidence. The glossary defines each term, and the limits page lists where these numbers are known to be wrong about the world.

Anticipation

How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?

+15.9 over 10 years, from 39.5 in 2016 to 55.4 on 2 indicators seen in both years.

Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Scientific articles
Scientific and technical journal articles published, per million people.
Measured in articles per million people; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 4998.4articles per million people
Year: 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Scientific articles
Scientific and technical journal articles published, per million people.
Measured in articles per million people; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
History

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Statistical performance
World Bank Statistical Performance Indicators overall score for the national statistical system.
Measured in index 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 83.554index 0-100
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Statistical performance
World Bank Statistical Performance Indicators overall score for the national statistical system.
Measured in index 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL)
History

Government foresight capacity

no dataset exists

Raw value: no dataindex 0-100
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: none
History: no data

Note: No comparable international dataset. OECD and UN work is descriptive, not scored. Envisioning would have to build this.

Long-horizon research commitments

no dataset exists

Raw value: no data% of new grants
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: none
History: no data

Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the share of R&D spending classed as basic research, which is the make-up of a spending stock, the construct D142 retired business R&D share for. OECD MSTI publishes that share for its members only, and UNESCO UIS no longer serves R&D by type of research (construct audit, 2026-10-02). The behaviour behind it is a funder committing to a horizon: a grant awarded for five years or more is a decision to wait for a result. Untried: no memo has triaged a grant register. National funders publish award lists one by one with their own durations, and commercial grant aggregators fail the inspectability rule. Wireable on a grant-level register with award and end dates, on one definition of a competitive public grant, for half the frame or more.

Conditions, not scored

What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.

R&D expenditureWorld Bank (GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS), 2023
0.79 % of GDP, rank 44 of 118. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: money committed to research is what a country spends, and spending it does not show the country reads the future well (D122).
Researchers in R&DWorld Bank (SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6), 2023
2,401 per million people, rank 36 of 114. Full-time-equivalent researchers per million people.
A condition, not scored: a standing stock of people who could investigate is what a country has, not a record of what they found (D122). Correlates with income but survives size normalization.
Secure internet serversWorld Bank (IT.NET.SECR.P6), 2024
50,751 per million people, rank 18 of 125. Servers using encryption in internet transactions, per million people.
A condition, not scored: a diffusion stock of digital adoption that money buys, not an act of anticipation (D122). Spans four orders of magnitude, so its rank is read on the published value and its correlations on the logged one.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

47.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold near 48. Panelist C is right that much foresight practice is imported from the EU, and with seven elections since 2021 caretaker cabinets keep it on paper; the statistical office is strong.
48.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Statistical performance is high under EU reporting duties and research output moderate. Seven elections since 2021 and long caretaker spells weaken forward planning, so I sit below the indicator.
44.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Statistical performance is high but EU reporting duties import it, and repeated caretaker governments weaken use. I stay near my round 1 score and below A and B.

Agency

How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?

No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
New business density
New limited liability companies registered per 1,000 working-age people.
Measured in per 1,000 aged 15-64; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 10.456per 1,000 aged 15-64
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
New business density
New limited liability companies registered per 1,000 working-age people.
Measured in per 1,000 aged 15-64; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS)
History

Time to start a business

retired, see notes

Raw value: no datadays
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-10-17 (D167). Doing Business stopped in 2019 and the World Bank archived the code. Its successor, B-READY, publishes the time and cost to register a firm as a score, and business entry efficiency carries that construct. See D23.

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Business entry efficiency
B-READY score for the time and cost to register a new domestic or foreign limited liability company.
Measured in score 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.BE.P3), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 80.243score 0-100
Year: 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Business entry efficiency
B-READY score for the time and cost to register a new domestic or foreign limited liability company.
Measured in score 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.BE.P3), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.BE.P3)
History: one year

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Procedures to start a business
Number of separate official procedures to register a company.
Measured in count; lower is better. Source: World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 7count
Year: 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Procedures to start a business
Number of separate official procedures to register a company.
Measured in count; lower is better. Source: World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO)
History

Adults doing digital tasks

no dataset exists

Raw value: no data% of adults
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: ITU / UNESCO UIS (SDG 4.4.1, ICT skills by type)
History: no data

Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked whether adults can perform standard digital tasks, which reads a skill level, the kind of stock D122 moved out of the scores with internet users. It now counts the act: a person who did the task. It is not the internet users condition beside it, which counts access. Candidate: ITU ICT skills by type (SDG 4.4.1) through the UNESCO UIS API, probed 2026-10-02. Sent a message with an attached file reaches 33 of the 53 countries then in the frame, 25 at 2018 or later, with no United States, India or China and most of Africa and Central America missing; two other task items reach 31 and 16. The items are self-reported and the task list has changed between rounds. Wireable on one task observed for half the frame or more at 2018 or later.

perception proxyRecords what people or experts say, not what they did.
Perceived control over life
Self-reported freedom of choice and control over the course of one’s life.
Measured in mean 1-10; higher is better. Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A173), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 6.4mean 1-10
Year: 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: perception proxyRecords what people or experts say, not what they did.
Perceived control over life
Self-reported freedom of choice and control over the course of one’s life.
Measured in mean 1-10; higher is better. Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A173), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
History: one year

Conditions, not scored

Individuals using the internetWorld Bank (IT.NET.USER.ZS), 2024
82.4 % of population, rank 66 of 125. Share of the population that used the internet in the last three months.
A condition, not scored: access to the basic tool of modern agency is what people have to act with, not a record of them acting (D122). Saturates near 95%, which compresses the top of the range.
Financial account ownershipWorld Bank (FX.OWN.TOTL.ZS), 2024
84.7 % aged 15+, rank 49 of 122. Adults with an account at a bank or mobile money provider.
A condition, not scored: holding an account is the precondition for almost any economic action, not the action (D122). Global Findex, published every three years.
Credit to the private sectorWorld Bank (FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), 2024
47.1 % of GDP, rank 58 of 124. Domestic credit provided to the private sector by financial corporations.
A condition, not scored: financial depth is a stock of money available to actors, not what they do with it (D122). High values can also signal a credit bubble, so more is not always better.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

52.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
I hold 52. The panel agrees: entry is easy and business density solid, and low perceived control matches emigration as an exit from institutions.
54.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Business density and entry efficiency are solid and the cheap entry regime is a real choice. Low perceived control fits emigration as the main way people act on intentions.
52.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Business density and entry efficiency are above median for a middle-income country, a choice rather than an income effect. Low perceived control and emigration as an exit channel hold it near the indicator.

Coordination

How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?

No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.

Government effectiveness

retired, see notes

Raw value: no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (GOV_WGI_GE.EST)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The WGI aggregate the opinions of experts and firms, and in this set the four WGI series correlate with each other between 0.93 and 0.98 while correlating with log GDP per capita at 0.91. That is one perception of national wealth counted in three dimensions. Cross-agency delivery records are the replacement and they are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.

Regulatory quality

retired, see notes

Raw value: no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (GOV_WGI_RQ.EST)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-08-26. Same measurement as government effectiveness, filed under a different name, correlating with it above 0.93. See D23 and A4.

Logistics performance

retired, see notes

Raw value: no dataindex 1-5
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (LP.LPI.OVRL.XQ)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The LPI is a survey of international freight forwarders, so it records how a country looks to global logistics firms. A small country with a small port scores low whatever its state can organise, which is artefact A9. Container throughput and border time are observable and stay. See D23.

Border compliance time to export

retired, see notes

Raw value: no datahours
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-10-17 (D167). Doing Business stopped in 2019 and the World Bank archived the code. B-READY trade efficiency carries the construct, the time and cost of border compliance, now reported by firms. See D23.

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Trade compliance efficiency
B-READY score for the time and cost firms report to comply with export and import requirements.
Measured in score 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.IT.P3), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 86.926score 0-100
Year: 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Trade compliance efficiency
B-READY score for the time and cost firms report to comply with export and import requirements.
Measured in score 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.IT.P3), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.IT.P3)
History: one year

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Budget execution fidelity
Distance between primary government expenditure and the original approved budget.
Measured in percentage points from approved budget; lower is better. Source: World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 85.91percentage points from approved budget
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Budget execution fidelity
Distance between primary government expenditure and the original approved budget.
Measured in percentage points from approved budget; lower is better. Source: World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
History

University-industry collaboration

no dataset exists, 1 record

Raw value: no dataindex 0-100
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: Global Innovation Index
History: no data

Note: GII carries it, but the underlying item is a WEF executive opinion survey whose microdata is not inspectable. Excluded on principle 4.

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Civil society strength
Autonomy, density and participatory reach of civil society organisations.
Measured in index 0-1; higher is better. Source: V-Dem (v2x_cspart), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 0.858index 0-1
Year: 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Civil society strength
Autonomy, density and participatory reach of civil society organisations.
Measured in index 0-1; higher is better. Source: V-Dem (v2x_cspart), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: V-Dem (v2x_cspart)
History: one year

Public-private collaboration

no dataset exists, 1 record

Raw value: no dataindex 0-100
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: none
History: no data

Note: No comparable dataset. PPP investment databases measure infrastructure finance, not collaboration capacity.

Behavioral check, not scored

Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.

Customs clearance time for exportsWorld Bank (IC.CUS.DURS.EX), 2023
2.612 days, lower is better. Average number of days to clear direct exports through customs, as reported by manufacturing firms that export directly, in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys.
Days a manufacturer that exports directly says its goods took to clear customs, from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. It is the time the border took on firms' own shipments, current where the Doing Business border time this capability scores is frozen at 2019. It is not scored for two reasons. The number of firms behind each country's figure is published only in the survey microdata, and on a proxy from the published tables 37 of the 53 countries in the frame when it was checked clear 30 exporting firms; Mexico, the Philippines, Israel and nine others may not. And the question changed: surveys fielded from 2024 also ask how long release took across all border agencies, and drop an answer where customs alone took longer, so a country surveyed on both sides of the change can move severalfold with nothing at its border changing. India reads 17.3 days in 2022 and 2.5 in 2025, on more than 9,000 firms each time. No country in the frame has two surveys on the new questionnaire yet. Income is not why it is left out: it barely tracks log GDP per capita.

Evidence for missing indicators

Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.

Bulgarialinked to Public-private collaborationstarted 2006still operating
Varna and Burgas airports concession
Bulgaria's Ministry of Transport signed a concession on 10 September 2006 that gave Fraport Twin Star, a German-Bulgarian company 60 percent owned by Fraport, the operation of the state airports at Varna and Burgas, and the two airports served 3.7 million passengers in 2025.
3,700,000 passengers, passengers served at burgas and varna airports combined, 2025. Fraport Twin Star Airport Management (Fraport Bulgaria), annual traffic release for 2025, 12 January 2026, retrieved 2026-10-17.
How it worked: The Ministry of Transport kept ownership of two Black Sea airports and tendered their operation and investment as one long concession, so a private operator carries traffic risk and capital spending while the state collects concession fees and keeps the assets.
Limits: The number is the concessionaire reporting on itself, rounded to 3.7 million, and no official statistical series was checked against it. The concession start and the 60 percent Fraport share come from a second page, Fraport's company listing (fraport.com, Fraport Twin Star Airport Management AD), which gives the term as 40 years while other sources say 35. Passenger counts show the traffic the airports handled, which depends mostly on tourism demand and airline decisions, not on what the public and private partners delivered together; the record carries no figure for investment delivered, service quality or payments to the state. The release names a runway rehabilitation at Burgas worth over 50 million euros but does not say it was completed. This is one concession for two regional airports run by a multinational, not a national programme, and the tier is generous for an operator's press release.
Bulgarialinked to University-industry collaborationstarted 2018still operating
Centres of Excellence and Centres of Competence
Bulgaria's Operational Programme Science and Education for Smart Growth established 16 Centres of Excellence and Centres of Competence, led by universities and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences institutes, with 215 million euros of ERDF support, and by 2023 they reported 257 joint research projects with business against a target of 150.
257 projects, joint research projects between the centres and business, 2023. 150 projects, target for joint research projects with business, 2023. Executive Agency Program Education (Bulgaria), Centers of Excellence and Centers of Competence in Bulgaria, presentation by the Deputy Executive Director, Interreg Europe, 19 November 2024, retrieved 2026-10-17.
How it worked: The education ministry's managing authority used cohesion funds to build research centres in the smart specialisation areas, set an output target for joint projects with business, and then made 2021-2027 funding depend on each centre's business plan.
Limits: The figure is the managing authority's own report of its programme, read from a slide in a conference presentation, not from a published monitoring report. The slide does not define a joint research project, give their value or say how many firms took part, so 257 could include small service contracts. Several centres are led by Academy of Sciences institutes rather than universities. The same presentation cites a 2021 JRC strategic evaluation that found the centres strongly focused on research excellence and less on commercialisation, with technology transfer still relatively limited. About 75 percent of the 2014-2020 money went to research infrastructure. The centres continue under the 2021-2027 Research, Innovation and Digitalisation programme with 168 million euros, which is the basis for the operating status.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

58.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold close to 60. EU membership supplies an external coordination frame, but repeated failure to form governments and pass budgets on time and slow EU fund absorption show weak domestic coordination; the indicator 83 overstates it.
58.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Trade compliance and civil society read high, but repeated failure to form governments and pass budgets and slow EU fund absorption show weak domestic coordination. I lower from 62 toward the panel because no one has an answer to the absorption record.
56.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Trade compliance and civil society are high, but government formation failures and weak EU-fund absorption show the indicator of 83 overstates domestic coordination. A and B's 60 to 62 is a fair range, I sit slightly lower since EU structure is borrowed.

Trust

How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?

No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.

Rule of law

retired, see notes

Raw value: no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (GOV_WGI_RL.EST)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite correlating with control of corruption above 0.95 and with log GDP per capita at 0.83. Court throughput and case clearance rates are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.

Control of corruption

retired, see notes

Raw value: no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (GOV_WGI_CC.EST)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite. It measures reputation for corruption, which is not the same thing as corruption, and it tracks income closely. Prosecution and audit records are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.

Time to enforce a contract

retired, see notes

Raw value: no datadays
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-10-17 (D167). Doing Business stopped in 2019 and the World Bank archived the code. B-READY dispute resolution efficiency carries the construct, the time and cost to resolve a commercial dispute and enforce the decision. See D23.

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Dispute resolution efficiency
B-READY score for the reliability, time and cost of resolving a commercial dispute and enforcing the decision.
Measured in score 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.DR.P3), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 66.314score 0-100
Year: 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Dispute resolution efficiency
B-READY score for the reliability, time and cost of resolving a commercial dispute and enforcing the decision.
Measured in score 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.DR.P3), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IC.BRE.DR.P3)
History: one year

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Bribery incidence
Firms asked for at least one bribe payment across six public transactions covering utilities, permits, licences and taxes.
Measured in % of firms; lower is better. Source: World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 0.918% of firms
Year: 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Bribery incidence
Firms asked for at least one bribe payment across six public transactions covering utilities, permits, licences and taxes.
Measured in % of firms; lower is better. Source: World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
History

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Government compliance with the courts
How often the government complies with important decisions of the ordinary and specialised courts that it disagrees with.
Measured in scale 0-4 (never to always); higher is better. Source: V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 3.183scale 0-4 (never to always)
Year: 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Government compliance with the courts
How often the government complies with important decisions of the ordinary and specialised courts that it disagrees with.
Measured in scale 0-4 (never to always); higher is better. Source: V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp)
History: one year

Intentional homicide rate

retired, see notes

Raw value: no dataper 100,000 people
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)
History: no data

Note: Added 2026-08-26 by D23 as the observable replacement for two retired WGI perception composites, and retired 2026-08-27 by D44 when the diagnostic built in D42 measured what it was doing. It raised this dimension's correlation with log GDP per capita by 0.288, from 0.096 to 0.385, the largest single wealth contribution anywhere in the model. It was added to fix wealth contamination and it was the wealth contamination. The dataset is sound and the objection is to what it measures here: homicide is driven heavily by organised crime, a society can be physically safe while trusting very little, and across this country set the variation it carries is mostly income. Behavioural trust measures remain a gap.

perception proxyRecords what people or experts say, not what they did.
Generalised interpersonal trust
Share agreeing that most people can be trusted.
Measured in % agreeing; higher is better. Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A165), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 17.1% agreeing
Year: 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: perception proxyRecords what people or experts say, not what they did.
Generalised interpersonal trust
Share agreeing that most people can be trusted.
Measured in % agreeing; higher is better. Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A165), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
History: one year

Trust in public institutions

no dataset exists

Raw value: no data% expressing confidence
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: OECD Trust Survey / WVS
History: no data

Note: The OECD survey covers members only. Mixing it with WVS items for India and South Africa would break comparability. The Joint EVS/WVS confidence battery (E069) reaches 37 countries from one release, and confidence in the courts (E069_17) is published beside Trust as a check under this id rather than scored: every item of the battery tested (courts, civil service, police, parliament and government) reads higher in the closed and electoral autocracies of the frame than in its democracies, which is deference as much as confidence (A13). The gap stays open for a measure that does not reward a court that cannot rule against the state. See D132.

perception proxyRecords what people or experts say, not what they did.
Cooperation beyond the in-group
Share of adults who trust people they meet for the first time completely or somewhat.
Measured in % expressing trust; higher is better. Source: Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 27.5% expressing trust
Year: 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: perception proxyRecords what people or experts say, not what they did.
Cooperation beyond the in-group
Share of adults who trust people they meet for the first time completely or somewhat.
Measured in % expressing trust; higher is better. Source: Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
History: one year

Court case clearance rate

no dataset exists

Raw value: no data% of incoming cases
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: CEPEJ / OECD / national court statistics
History: no data

Note: Whether a court finishes what it starts, counted from case records rather than asked in a survey. D23 named it as the observable replacement for the two retired WGI composites and it has stayed unfilled since. CEPEJ publishes it for Council of Europe members and OECD for its own members, so no single publisher reaches this country set, and a harmonised series needs the project second source adapter. See D57.

Behavioral check, not scored

Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.

Confidence in the courtsJoint EVS/WVS (E069_17), 2022
2.5 % a great deal, higher is better. Share of survey respondents saying they have a great deal of confidence in the justice system and courts, of the four answers a great deal, quite a lot, not very much and none at all, in the Joint EVS/WVS 2017 to 2022 survey round.
Confidence in the courts is the public half of what this capability asks: whether people expect the rules to be enforced when a stranger breaks them. It is not scored because the survey answer reads two things the number cannot tell apart. Where courts are independent, confidence is a judgment of how they perform. Where they answer to the state, it is also deference, and saying otherwise to an interviewer has a cost. In this frame the pattern runs the wrong way. India, the Philippines and Indonesia, all electoral autocracies in the V-Dem 2025 classification, lead on the share saying a great deal, and Vietnam and China, the two closed autocracies surveyed, lead once quite a lot is counted too. The ten electoral autocracies average 21.8 percent saying a great deal and the two closed autocracies 28.1, against 13.6 for liberal and 8.4 for electoral democracies. Scored, it would rank highest the states whose courts are least able to rule against them. Income is not why it is left out: the share correlates about -0.18 with log GDP per capita. The value is the share saying a great deal; the share saying quite a lot is in the source note.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

42.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
I hold 42. The panel agrees: generalised trust is low and the prosecutor general crisis shows a judiciary that cannot hold its own head to account, which the near-zero firm bribery figure does not fit.
42.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Low generalised and out-group trust carry more weight than the 1 percent firm bribery figure, which sits badly with the EU monitoring record on the prosecutor general. I hold with the panel.
42.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Generalised and out-group trust are low, and 1% firm bribery sits uneasily with the prosecutor general crisis and EU monitoring. I hold with A and B.

Learning

How effectively does the country acquire, distribute, and update knowledge?

No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Human Capital Index
Expected productivity of a child born today relative to full health and complete education.
Measured in index 0-1; higher is better. Source: World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 0.614index 0-1
Year: 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Human Capital Index
Expected productivity of a child born today relative to full health and complete education.
Measured in index 0-1; higher is better. Source: World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
History

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Firms offering formal training
Share of firms that provide formal training to permanent employees.
Measured in % of firms; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 15.455% of firms
Year: 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Firms offering formal training
Share of firms that provide formal training to permanent employees.
Measured in % of firms; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
History

Adult learning participation

no dataset exists, 1 record

Raw value: no data% of adults
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: Eurostat / OECD PIAAC
History: no data

Note: The best available measure of continuous learning capacity, and it exists only for European and OECD members.

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Research citation impact
Share of a country's articles and reviews that are in the top 10% most cited for their subfield and year, as a ratio to the same share across all country-affiliated works.
Measured in ratio to world average; higher is better. Source: OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 0.726ratio to world average
Year: 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Research citation impact
Share of a country's articles and reviews that are in the top 10% most cited for their subfield and year, as a ratio to the same share across all country-affiliated works.
Measured in ratio to world average; higher is better. Source: OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent)
History: one year

Conditions, not scored

Tertiary enrolmentWorld Bank (SE.TER.ENRR), 2024
69.5 % gross, rank 43 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2022
4.5 % of GDP, rank 53 of 125. Government expenditure on education as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: public spending on education is a pure input, and learning is what the dimension asks about (D122).
Vocational share of secondaryWorld Bank (SE.SEC.ENRL.VO.ZS), 2018
33.5 % of secondary, rank 14 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
A condition, not scored: the share of secondary pupils on a vocational track describes how a school system is built, not what anyone learns in it, and higher is not unambiguously better (D141). It marks a route into skilled work that does not run through university. Learning reads research citation impact, firm training and the human capital index instead.

Evidence for missing indicators

Bulgarialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2002still operating
Employment Agency adult training, including the DI-GI digital skills vouchers
Bulgaria's Employment Agency (Agentsia po zaetostta) included more than 155,450 unemployed and employed adults in training in 2025, against just over 87,540 in 2024, with 97,911 people certified through digital skills vouchers financed under the national Recovery and Resilience Plan.
155,450 people, unemployed and employed people included in adult training by the employment agency ('over 155 450'), 2025. 87,540 people, same count for the previous year ('just over 87 540'), 2024. Agentsia po zaetostta (Employment Agency), Otchet na Plana za deystvie na Agentsiyata po zaetostta za 2025 g. (report on the 2025 action plan), text volume, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The national employment agency issues training vouchers to unemployed, inactive and employed adults, who choose a licensed provider, and pays the provider on completion, with EU recovery and social funds paying for most of the volume.
Limits: The agency reports on itself, and the cited URL is a zip archive from the agency's 'Otchet za deynostta na AZ' page holding two PDFs; the headline counts are on page 81 of the 84-page text volume (Otchet_Plan za deistvie_2025_text.pdf), and both are stated as 'over' and 'just over', so they are rounded. The 2025 jump is mostly vouchers: 97,911 people certified in basic and advanced digital skills under component 2 of investment C1.I3 of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (page 34), and 22,140 employed people trained under the ESF+ project for employed workers; much of the money is EU, though the agency delivers it. Digital skills courses can be short and online, the counts mix enrolment and certification, and one person may appear in more than one scheme. Training for the registered unemployed is far smaller: 6,705 unemployed people were included in training under the programmes and measures of the national employment action plan (page 17). The RRF component ends with the facility in 2026, so 2025 is unlikely to be a stable level. The 2002 start is the year of the Employment Promotion Act under which the agency trains adults, not read at the source.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

40.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I move to 40. Panelist B is right that adult learning participation is among the lowest in the EU, which cuts against the formal stability I credited.
38.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Human capital is mid-frame, firm training low and adult learning among the lowest in the EU. Weak PISA results and low citation impact keep it near the indicator.
40.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
HCI is mid-frame, firm training low and citation impact below world average. Weak PISA results are not in the brief, so I stay mid.

Experimentation

How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?

-5.2 over 10 years, from 35.6 in 2016 to 30.4 on 3 indicators seen in both years.

-20.3 over 20 years, from 47.1 in 2006 to 26.8 on 2 indicators seen in both years.

Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Resident patent applications
Patent applications filed by residents, per million people.
Measured in per million people; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 179per million people
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Resident patent applications
Patent applications filed by residents, per million people.
Measured in per million people; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
History

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Resident trademark applications
Direct trademark applications by residents, per million people.
Measured in per million people; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 12247per million people
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Resident trademark applications
Direct trademark applications by residents, per million people.
Measured in per million people; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
History

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Resident industrial design applications
Industrial design applications filed by residents at their national office, per million people.
Measured in per million people; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 485per million people
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Resident industrial design applications
Industrial design applications filed by residents at their national office, per million people.
Measured in per million people; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
History

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
New public software repositories
Growth over one year in the public GitHub repositories located in the country, per million people.
Measured in per million people; higher is better. Source: GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 137568per million people
Year: 2026. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
New public software repositories
Growth over one year in the public GitHub repositories located in the country, per million people.
Measured in per million people; higher is better. Source: GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv)
History: no data

Venture deals

no dataset exists

Raw value: no dataper million people
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: OECD / national VC associations
History: no data

Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The id keeps its first name so evidence records, links and published files still resolve. The row asked for venture capital deployed as a share of GDP, a level of financial depth of the kind private credit is (D122). A count of first rounds counts attempts started with outside risk money, which is what this capability asks about, and a large round counts once. Candidates, none wireable: the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Financing scoreboard carried venture capital for 6 of the 16 countries the frame held on 2026-08-26, as amounts in national currency, latest year 2022, with Brazil, India, South Africa and Singapore absent (D21); national venture capital associations publish counts on their own definitions; commercial deal databases cover the world and are not inspectable (D10). Wireable on an inspectable deal count with one definition of a first round for half the frame or more. Read A1 before treating this dimension as measured.

Early-stage entrepreneurial activity

missing

Raw value: no data% aged 18-64
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
History: no data

Note: From the GEM Adult Population Survey, entered by hand because GEM has no open API. TEA counts every new business, so necessity self-employment scores the same as a funded startup, which is why Chile and Argentina sit above the United States here. Read it as how many people are trying, not as how much value the attempts create. GEM does not run every economy every year: Singapore last took part in 2014 and the recency term marks that value down hard.

Tolerance of entrepreneurial failure

missing

Raw value: no data% not deterred
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, fear of failure rate)
History: no data

Note: Stored as 100 minus the published GEM fear of failure rate, so the direction matches the rest of the registry. GEM measures that rate among adults who already see good opportunities, not among all adults, so the denominator differs from the label. Attitudinal: bankruptcy law and time to discharge would be the observable substitute and are still worth wiring beside it.

Firms through regulatory sandboxes

no dataset exists

Raw value: no datafirms per million people
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: national regulators
History: no data

Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the number and breadth of live sandboxes, which is a policy stock: a regime can exist with nobody in it. It now counts what passes through: firms a regulator let test under relaxed rules, and firms that came out, authorised, withdrawn or failed. Regulators publish cohort lists and exit reports one by one. The evidence corpus holds 22 records against this row, most of them counts of firms admitted or exited, each on the definition and window of its own regulator, and no register assembles them on one definition (O1 triage sweep, 2026-10-01). A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build from those lists. Wireable on a register that counts admissions and completions on one definition for half the frame or more.

University spinouts

no dataset exists

Raw value: no dataper million people
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: national TTO associations
History: no data

Note: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.

Business share of R&D

retired, see notes

Raw value: no data% of R&D
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: OECD MSTI / RICYT
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-10-02. The only working source, OECD MSTI joined with RICYT for Latin America, covers 34 of the 53 countries then in the frame, but the row reads the make-up of a spending stock: who performs the R&D a country pays for. R&D spending itself is a condition since D122, and the share is high both where business research is large (Israel) and where total research is tiny and one firm dominates it (Thailand). State enterprises count as business, so China and Vietnam read their ownership model. UIS stopped publishing the series in 2023. Firms trying new things are read through patents, trademarks, designs and entrepreneurship instead. See D142.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

33.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I hold near 32. The software sector is real but largely outsourcing work, and patents are low; venture and failure tolerance data are absent.
36.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
IP and repository counts are moderate and the Sofia software and start-up scene is active. I lower slightly because much of the IT sector is outsourcing, which is execution more than trial and error.
33.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Trademarks and repositories are mid-high from an IT outsourcing sector, while patents are low. Roughly in line with the indicator, with no scale-up evidence to go higher.

Adaptability

How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?

No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Unemployment rate
Unemployed as a share of the labour force, modelled ILO estimate.
Measured in % of labour force; lower is better. Source: World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 3.536% of labour force
Year: 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Unemployment rate
Unemployed as a share of the labour force, modelled ILO estimate.
Measured in % of labour force; lower is better. Source: World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
History

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Long-term unemployment share
Unemployed for 12 months or more, as a share of total unemployment.
Measured in % of unemployed; lower is better. Source: ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 57.9% of unemployed
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Long-term unemployment share
Unemployed for 12 months or more, as a share of total unemployment.
Measured in % of unemployed; lower is better. Source: ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
History: one year

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Export diversification
Concentration of the merchandise export basket across products: the normalised Herfindahl-Hirschman index over SITC Rev.3 3-digit lines, 0 when exports are spread evenly and 1 when one product is everything.
Measured in index 0-1, lower = more diversified; lower is better. Source: UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 0.087index 0-1, lower = more diversified
Year: 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Export diversification
Concentration of the merchandise export basket across products: the normalised Herfindahl-Hirschman index over SITC Rev.3 3-digit lines, 0 when exports are spread evenly and 1 when one product is everything.
Measured in index 0-1, lower = more diversified; lower is better. Source: UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
History: one year

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
New export products
Share of the products a country did not export competitively in 2009-2011 that it exported competitively in 2022-2024.
Measured in % of products not exported competitively at the start; higher is better. Source: Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ)), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 8.61% of products not exported competitively at the start
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
New export products
Share of the products a country did not export competitively in 2009-2011 that it exported competitively in 2022-2024.
Measured in % of products not exported competitively at the start; higher is better. Source: Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ)), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ))
History: one year

Disaster preparedness and recovery

no dataset exists, 1 record

Raw value: no dataindex 0-100
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: INFORM / UNDRR
History: no data

Note: No source observes a country preparing for or recovering from a real shock. INFORM publishes its lack of coping capacity apart from hazard and exposure, but that dimension averages government self-assessments and governance perception indices with stocks such as roads, phones and physicians, which is the perception layer D23 retired plus conditions money buys (D122). Sendai and WHO reporting are governments grading themselves. A warning-reach survey item is a check candidate. See the disaster preparedness memo.

Institutional responsiveness

no dataset exists, 1 record

Raw value: no dataindex 0-100
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: none
History: no data

Note: No dataset exists. Measurable in principle from legislative and regulatory timestamps, which no one has assembled comparably.

Conditions, not scored

Labour force participationWorld Bank (SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS), 2025
73.2 % aged 15+, rank 52 of 125. Share of the working-age population in the labour force.
A condition, not scored: how much of the population is in the labor force at all is what a country has to reallocate, a level set by norms, schooling and age, not a record of it reallocating (D141). Participation norms confound it, especially for India. Adaptability reads reallocation through long-term unemployment and export diversification instead.
Fixed broadband subscriptionsWorld Bank (IT.NET.BBND.P2), 2023
37 per 100 people, rank 23 of 125. Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
A condition, not scored: installed infrastructure is what a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D122). Penalizes mobile-first countries such as India and South Africa.
Electricity transmission lossesWorld Bank (EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS), 2024
6 % of output, rank 29 of 117. Power lost in transmission and distribution, including unbilled use.
A condition, not scored: the state of the grid, and whether its operator can bill what it delivers, is infrastructure a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D141). Read it beside broadband, the other installed network beside Adaptability.
Informal employmentILOSTAT (DF_SDG_0831_SEX_ECO_RT), 2025
3.6 % of employment, rank 15 of 102. Informal employment as a share of total employment, SDG indicator 8.3.1.
A condition, not scored: how much work carries no contract, registration or social protection describes the labor market a country reallocates through, not it reallocating (D150). Read it beside the unemployment rate: where most work is informal, a person who loses a job takes any work within weeks, so a low rate is not a fluid market. Its direction for Adaptability cannot be defended, since informal work is both the slack that absorbs a shock and the precarity that keeps a worker from moving up, so the rank orders values and is not a verdict. Comparability is weak: the European values come from an income survey (EU-SILC) with a proxy definition, and the rest from labor force or household surveys processed by the ILO. ILOSTAT has no value for the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, China, the Philippines or Cuba, and some values are old (Haiti and Nicaragua 2012).

Evidence for missing indicators

Bulgarialinked to Institutional responsivenessstarted 2020delivered and closed
The 60/40 employment retention measure, 2020 to 2021
Bulgaria's National Social Security Institute paid employers 60 percent of the wages and contributions of staff kept on during the COVID-19 emergency under Council of Ministers Decree No. 55 of 2020, starting with 68 employers and 1,065 employees on 15 April 2020, and by 4 March 2021 the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy reported BGN 884 million paid under the measure and 300,000 jobs kept.
884 million BGN, paid under the 60/40 measure, cumulative, 2021-03-04. 1,065 employees, employees in the first published payment list (68 employers), 2020-04-15. Ministry of Labour and Social Policy of Bulgaria, news release 'Ministar Sacheva: 884 mln. lv. sa plateni po myarkata 60/40, kato sa zapazeni 300 000 rabotni mesta', 4 March 2021, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Council of Ministers decreed that the social security fund would pay 60 percent of wages and contributions for workers whose employers kept them on, with the employer paying the other 40 percent, and the Employment Agency approved applications that the social security institute then paid and published employer by employer.
Limits: The BGN 884 million and the 300,000 jobs are a minister's statement on the ministry's own site, with no breakdown; 'jobs kept' is the number of supported positions, not a counterfactual estimate of jobs saved. The start figures are our sums from the National Social Security Institute's first payment list (nssi.bg, 'Izplateni kompensatsii po PMS No. 55 ot 2020 g.', file pms55_15042020.xls: 68 employers, 1,065 persons, BGN 274,274), one of 45 lists the Institute published to December 2021; one of them (14 May 2020) is truncated at the source and cannot be read, so we do not give a total from the lists. Speed was modest: the ministry reported only 643 employer applications covering 7,231 employees in late April 2020 (mlsp.government.bg, '643 zayavleniya ot rabotodateli sa postapili po skhemata 60/40'), and uptake grew through May and June. The decree date and the date of the emergency declaration are not on the pages opened, so the record times the response from the first payment, not from the shock.
Bulgarialinked to Disaster preparedness and recoverystarted 2014delivered and closed
Operational Programme Environment 2014-2020, flood and landslide risk axis
The Ministry of Environment and Water, through Operational Programme Environment 2014-2020, funded 18 flood and landslide risk contracts, which by 18 October 2024 reported flood-protection measures benefiting more than 2,130,000 residents, 103 areas with prevented flood risk, six flood-preparedness centres, the BG-ALERT cell-broadcast warning system and a population early-warning system in 11 administrative regions.
2,130,000 people (more than), residents benefiting from flood-protection measures, 2024-10-18. 103 areas, areas with prevented flood risk, 2024-10-18. Managing Authority of Operational Programme Environment 2014-2020, progress report to the seventh Monitoring Committee meeting (5 to 7 November 2024), retrieved 2026-10-16.
How it worked: The Ministry of Environment and Water, as managing authority, ring-fenced a priority axis of an EU-funded programme for flood and landslide risk and channelled it through direct grants to the civil-protection directorate of the Ministry of Interior and competitive grants to municipalities, so warning systems and local protection works were built under one monitored budget.
Limits: The managing authority reports on its own programme, and the figures sit on one slide of a monitoring-committee presentation (PDF page 7), with no list of projects, no method and no breakdown by area. The same presentation marks its water results as not final, with final reporting due by 15 February 2027, and nothing on the risk slide says those values are final either. 'Residents benefiting' counts people living in areas where measures were built, not avoided losses or reduced flood damage, and the 103 areas are not defined on the slide. The money is mainly EU Cohesion Fund: the Ministry of Environment and Water's 2015 programming presentation gives EUR 50 million of Union support against about EUR 8.8 million of national co-financing for the flood axis, so the delivery is Bulgarian institutions spending a mostly external budget. The slide does not show how the warning systems perform in a real event: in April 2025, as reported by The Sofia Globe (https://sofiaglobe.com/2025/04/30/bulgarias-pm-orders-get-bg-alert-system-working/), the Prime Minister cited the lack of a warning during recent floods and ordered ministries to present a plan for BG-ALERT within 10 days. The early-warning system covers 11 administrative regions, not the whole country.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

65.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold 65. Export diversification and new products are strong, but a high long-term unemployment share and no stable government to respond to shocks keep me below the indicator.
66.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Export diversification and new export products are near the top of the frame, a real shift since 1990. High long-term unemployment and population decline hold it below the indicator.
65.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Export diversification and new products are near the top, a real shift since 1990. Long-term unemployment is high and EU access helped, so I sit below 81.

Building

How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?

+5.0 over 10 years, from 11.5 in 2016 to 16.5 on 2 indicators seen in both years.

Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.

Manufacturing value added

missing

Raw value: no data% of GDP
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
History: no data

Note: Evidence that the country still makes physical things at scale. Penalises service-heavy high-capability economies such as the Netherlands.

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
High-technology exports
High-technology exports as a share of manufactured exports.
Measured in % of manufactured exports; higher is better. Source: World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 13.43% of manufactured exports
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
High-technology exports
High-technology exports as a share of manufactured exports.
Measured in % of manufactured exports; higher is better. Source: World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS)
History

Logistics infrastructure quality

retired, see notes

Raw value: no dataindex 1-5
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (LP.LPI.INFR.XQ)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-08-26. An LPI sub-index, so the same freight-forwarder survey as logistics performance and the same problem. Electricity connection speed stays as the observable infrastructure measure in this dimension. See D23.

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Electricity connection speed
Doing Business score for the days a business waits for a permanent electricity connection.
Measured in score 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 0score 0-100
Year: 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Electricity connection speed
Doing Business score for the days a business waits for a permanent electricity connection.
Measured in score 0-100; higher is better. Source: World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
History

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Economic fitness
Diversity and ubiquity-adjusted sophistication of the export basket.
Measured in index; higher is better. Source: World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 0.397index
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Economic fitness
Diversity and ubiquity-adjusted sophistication of the export basket.
Measured in index; higher is better. Source: World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD)
History

Large project delivery

no dataset exists, 2 records

Raw value: no data% overrun
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: none
History: no data

Note: The single best measure of execution capability and there is no comparable international dataset. Assembling one is a defensible Envisioning project. Building mixes industrial output with state delivery capacity, and this indicator carries the delivery side: the other six indicators cannot see a national programme that was delivered. Documented deliveries are recorded in data/evidence and never scored, see D20.

Firm scale-up rate

no dataset exists

Raw value: no data% of firms
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: OECD DynEmp
History: no data

Note: OECD business dynamics work covers members irregularly. Nothing comparable for India, Brazil or South Africa.

Conditions, not scored

Output per workerWorld Bank (SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD), 2025
76,237 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 40 of 123. GDP per person employed, constant purchasing power parity.
A condition, not scored: output per worker is income per worker, the wealth the benchmark tests capability against, so it is published beside Building as context (D122).

Evidence for missing indicators

Bulgarialinked to Large project deliverystarted 2008delivered and closed
Road Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, and its cut after the 2009 budget squeeze
Bulgaria's Road Infrastructure Agency rehabilitated national roads under a EUR144 million project approved in June 2007, but after budget cuts in 2010 cancelled three lots on about 87 km where works had not started, reducing the length from 450 km to 307 km, and closed in June 2013, two years late, at EUR97.1 million, 67 percent of the appraisal estimate.
97.146 million euros, total project cost, actual, 2013-06-30. 144 million euros, total project cost, appraisal estimate, 2007-06-26. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Bulgaria Road Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, December 2013, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The road agency contracted nine regional rehabilitation lots on a loan, then, when the national budget could not cover its co-financing and payments, cancelled the lots not yet started and stretched the rest over two more years.
Limits: The figures are the World Bank's, from a completion report on its own loan, which reproduces the agency's own implementation report as an annex. The 450 to 307 km reduction and the cancelled lots are in section 1.6 (printed page 4); the costs in Annex 1 (page 19); the original and revised closing dates on the datasheet. Spending fell because scope was cut, not because works came in cheap, so the 67 percent is a measure of a shrunken programme, not of savings. The cause the report names is the government's fiscal restraint after the 2008 to 2009 crisis, with 2010 budget funds spent on 2009 obligations, and only 8 to 9 percent of the loan disbursed by mid-2009. These are rehabilitation lots on existing class I to III roads, not a new motorway, and the record says nothing about the EU-funded motorways built in the same years.
Bulgarialinked to Large project deliverystarted 2008dismantled
Belene nuclear power plant, and its cancellation
Bulgaria's state utility NEK ordered long-lead reactor equipment for the Belene nuclear plant from Atomstroyexport in 2008. The project was cancelled before any unit was completed, and on 6 December 2016 the Ministry of Energy transferred 601,617,133 euros to NEK so it could pay the damages awarded against it in ICC arbitration case 18086/GZ/MHM.
601,617,133 EUR, state financial assistance transferred to nek to pay the belene arbitration award to atomstroyexport, 2016-12-06. 1,400,000,000 BGN, costs incurred on the belene construction to date, as stated by the minister of energy, 2016. Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Bulgaria, press release of 6 December 2016, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: NEK, the state utility, ordered long-lead reactor equipment from a single foreign vendor in 2008 before financing or a final contract price was settled. The government cancelled the project in 2012, the Ministry of Energy advanced NEK repayable assistance in 2016 to pay the vendor's arbitration claim, and the project was revived in 2018.
Limits: Belene never produced electricity, so this record documents a delivery that failed before it operated, not a capability that eroded. The headline number is a termination cost, the arbitration damages for equipment ordered in 2008, and not a cost overrun against a budget: the record carries no official baseline budget or schedule for the 2008 phase. The 1.4 billion leva of costs incurred comes from a minister speaking in a television interview. The ministry republished the transcript without a printed date; the 2016 year is inferred from the special assistance law the interview discusses. It is not an audited figure. The project was decided in April 2005, cancelled in March 2012, and revived by a National Assembly decision of 7 June 2018 and a Council of Ministers decision of 29 June 2018. Later decisions on the site and the equipment are not covered by these sources. The 601.6 million euros was advanced to NEK as repayable assistance, not a grant, so the final fiscal loss is not shown here. The later disposal or reuse of the equipment the payment bought is not covered.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

37.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I hold near 38. The panel agrees the indicator 11 is an artefact of a zero 2019 electricity score and missing manufacturing data; Belene and motorway delays show poor state delivery.
36.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.30
The indicator figure of 11 rests on a zero 2019 electricity score and missing manufacturing data, which is an artefact. A real manufacturing base exists, but motorway delays and Belene show weak large project delivery.
37.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
The indicator of 11 rests on a missing manufacturing series and a stale zero electricity reading. Motorway and Belene delays show weak delivery, so I stay mid-low.

Shared Purpose

To what extent can people imagine themselves as participants in a common project?

+2.0 over 10 years, from 53.9 in 2016 to 55.9 on 2 indicators seen in both years.

-6.9 over 20 years, from 62.8 in 2006 to 55.9 on 2 indicators seen in both years.

+3.1 over 30 years, from 52.8 in 1996 to 55.9 on 2 indicators seen in both years.

Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.

Voice and accountability

retired, see notes

Raw value: no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: World Bank (GOV_WGI_VA.EST)
History: no data

Note: Retired 2026-08-26. Artefact A5: it measures the democratic channel while Shared Purpose asks whether people can see themselves in a common project. Singapore scored 20.9 while being one of the most effective collective actors in the set. Volunteering and civic participation are the observable replacements and are declared gaps; voter turnout is published beside Shared Purpose as a check, because it reads the same democratic channel and compulsory voting (D129). See D23 and A5.

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Tax revenue
Central government tax revenue as a share of GDP.
Measured in % of GDP; higher is better. Source: World Bank (GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 20.672% of GDP
Year: 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Tax revenue
Central government tax revenue as a share of GDP.
Measured in % of GDP; higher is better. Source: World Bank (GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS)
History

downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Income inequality
Gini index of disposable income.
Measured in Gini 0-100; lower is better. Source: World Bank (SI.POV.GINI), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 39.5Gini 0-100
Year: 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: downstream outcomeMeasures a result that usually follows from the capability.
Income inequality
Gini index of disposable income.
Measured in Gini 0-100; lower is better. Source: World Bank (SI.POV.GINI), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: World Bank (SI.POV.GINI)
History

Sense of national belonging

no dataset exists

Raw value: no data% expressing belonging
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: Joint EVS/WVS (G006)
History: no data

Note: A declared gap again since 2026-10-02 (D151, which supersedes the retirement in D143). The project still wants to know whether people count themselves members of the community whose common project this capability asks about, so the row stays even though no series can fill it. The only cross-national item aimed at it, national pride (G006) in the Joint EVS/WVS, is not wired: pride is not belonging, and it fails the regime test of artefact A13, with electoral autocracies at 75 percent very proud against 47 in liberal democracies. ISSP 2023 asks about closeness to the country in 16 countries. Wireable on an item that reads the same in every regime class, or on a behaviour of belonging, for half the frame or more. High national pride must never be read as the capacity for collective action.

Volunteering

no dataset exists

Raw value: no data% of adults
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: Gallup World Poll / CAF
History: no data

Note: CAF publishes country figures but the underlying Gallup microdata is proprietary, so it fails the inspectability rule.

Political polarisation

no dataset exists

Raw value: no dataindex 0-4
Year: no data
Normalized: no data
Source: V-Dem
History: no data

Note: V-Dem political polarization (v2cacamps) is published beside this dimension as a behavioral check and is not scored, because a regime with no organized opposition reads as calm (D121, A13). The gap stays open for a measure that can tell calm between competing camps from calm where no camp may compete. Pluralism is the target, so only hostile polarization should count against a country.

direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Civic participation
Share of adults who report belonging to a humanitarian or charitable organisation.
Measured in % mentioning; higher is better. Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A080_01), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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observed

Raw value: 3.4% mentioning
Year: 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
Normalized: direct capability measureMeasures the thing itself.
Civic participation
Share of adults who report belonging to a humanitarian or charitable organisation.
Measured in % mentioning; higher is better. Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A080_01), also in the indicator registry. Each flag is a country at its normalized position from 0 to 100, where higher always means better. The bar in the list below shows the same position.
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Source: Joint EVS/WVS (A080_01)
History: one year

Behavioral check, not scored

Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.

Political polarizationV-Dem (v2cacamps_osp), 2025
3.328 index 0-4, lower is better. Whether supporters of opposing political camps generally meet in a friendly or a hostile manner, rated by V-Dem country experts from 0, friendly, to 4, hostile.
The question counts hostility and leaves disagreement alone, which is what pluralism asks for. It is not scored because a low reading has two causes the number cannot tell apart. Where camps compete openly, a calm reading means people who disagree still meet as fellow citizens. Where no opposition may organize, it means there is no camp left to be hostile to. In 2025 the five closed autocracies in the frame average 2.18 and the liberal democracies 1.67, while electoral democracies and electoral autocracies sit near 2.8 and 3.3. Scored, the reading would have lifted the United Arab Emirates about 11 points on this capability for a uniformity the benchmark does not count as shared purpose. Income is not why it is left out: richer countries read only somewhat calmer, at about -0.41 against log GDP per capita.
Voter turnoutV-Dem (v2eltrnout), 2024
38.94 % of registered voters, higher is better. Share of registered voters who cast a vote in the latest national election up to 2025, according to official results, as coded by V-Dem from IDEA, IPU and IFES sources. Where executive and legislative elections fall on the same day, the executive turnout is coded.
Turnout is the one act in which a whole population takes part in a common decision, so it is the closest behavioral reading of shared purpose the benchmark has. It is not scored for three reasons the number cannot separate. It reads the democratic channel, which is why voice and accountability was retired from this capability (A5): a country with no competitive elections cannot score well for reasons unrelated to whether its people see themselves in a common project. Compulsory voting turns it into a reading of the law: Brazil enforces it, and the eight countries that enforce sanctions average 83 percent against 65 where voting is voluntary. And closed and electoral autocracies manage it: Vietnam reads 95.6, Rwanda 98.2 and Singapore 92.8, which is mobilization, not participation (A13). The year shown is the latest national election, because elections are coded only in the year they happen.

Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works

35.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold 35. Civic participation is very low and voter fatigue after seven elections is visible; the 2020 protests showed capacity to oppose but not to build a common project.
36.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Civic participation is very low and election fatigue is visible. The 2020 and 2021 anti-corruption protests show a capacity for collective action that has not yet held a sustained project.
36.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Mid tax effort and very low civic participation. Anti-corruption protests show capacity, but sustained collective projects are weak after repeated elections.

🇧🇬Bulgaria

Government foresight capacity

Long-horizon research commitments

Time to start a business

Adults doing digital tasks

Government effectiveness

Regulatory quality

Logistics performance

Border compliance time to export

University-industry collaboration

Public-private collaboration

Rule of law

Control of corruption

Time to enforce a contract

Intentional homicide rate

Trust in public institutions

Court case clearance rate

Adult learning participation

Venture deals

Early-stage entrepreneurial activity

Tolerance of entrepreneurial failure

Firms through regulatory sandboxes

University spinouts

Business share of R&D

Disaster preparedness and recovery

Institutional responsiveness

Manufacturing value added

Logistics infrastructure quality

Large project delivery

Firm scale-up rate

Voice and accountability

Sense of national belonging

Volunteering

Political polarisation

Bulgaria