Skip to content
NCBNational Capability Benchmark
Navigate with ↑ ↓Enter to openEsc to close

Challenge the benchmark

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

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

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

Capability agenda

Iran

Generated 2026-10-17

The frame includes 125 countries. Each dimension is scored from 0 to 100, with no overall ranking, and each score shows its confidence beside it. Read the known limits of the data before you quote a score.

Open the profile: indicators, values, years and sources

Where Iran stands

DimensionScoreConfidenceTrend
Anticipation33.80.46+14.7 over 10 years using 2 indicators
Agency33.00.38no trend
Coordinationnot scored0.10no trend
Trust26.70.28no trend
Learning37.00.32no trend
Experimentation39.80.41-25.9 over 10 years using 3 indicators
Adaptability72.40.53no trend
Building45.10.38+10.8 over 10 years using 2 indicators
Shared Purpose72.10.26no trend

Score

  • weakNear the floor of the frame. Check the confidence before reading anything into it.0 to 25
  • below middleIn the lower half of the frame.25 to 50
  • above middleIn the upper half of the frame.50 to 75
  • strongNear the top of the frame on this dimension.75 and above

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 Do not quote it on its own.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.

Capability over time

Select a dimension to see how Iran’s comparable evidence has moved over time. The vertical scale is the current comparison frame, from 0 to 100.

Dimension

Capability position in the current frame0 to 100
025507510020162017201820192020202120222023202420252026

Anticipation 2016 → 2026: 19.1 to 33.8 (+14.7) over 10 years using 2 indicators

Agenda items on this timeline

19601970198019902000201020202026
  • 2011Center for the Islamic Iranian Model of Progress (Markaz-e Olgu)

Historical values use today’s frame from 0 to 100 and a matched basket of indicators. They show movement in the available evidence, not an overall development score. Dated agenda items appear on a separate timeline and do not change the score. A missing line means the evidence does not support a comparable trend for that dimension.

What to raise

These are the lowest scores with usable evidence. Thin evidence appears below.

Anticipation

33.80.46

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

Uses 2 observed indicators. +14.7 over 10 years using 2 indicators.

Highest usable scores: Denmark 98.1, Norway 97.2, Switzerland 93.4.

Related deliveries in other countries: Embrapa, a fifty-year bet on tropical agriculture (Brazil); The Delta Programme and its fund (Netherlands); Lei de Informática, a sectoral industrial policy (Brazil); CGEE, the strategic studies center (Brazil); Centre for Strategic Futures, foresight inside government (Singapore); Legally binding carbon budgets (United Kingdom); Fukushima decommissioning roadmap, a 30–40-year risk-reduction horizon (Japan); National basic-research funding allocation (China); PLANAPP and REPLAN, a centre-of-government foresight network (Portugal); Labour Market Intelligence Programme and forward skills planning (South Africa); Government Report on the Future and the parliamentary Committee for the Future (Finland); Foresight Centre at the Riigikogu (Arenguseire Keskus) (Estonia); Office of Technology Assessment, defunded and closed in 1995 (United States); Rządowe Centrum Studiów Strategicznych, liquidated in 2006 (Poland); Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) (Germany); National Assembly Futures Institute (South Korea); Federal Chancellery situation and environment analysis (Perspektivstab) (Switzerland); Senate foresight delegation (Délégation sénatoriale à la prospective) (France); Senate Commission on Future Challenges, Science, Technology and Innovation (Chile); Policy Horizons Canada, the federal foresight unit, and its 2024 disruption scan (Canada); Framtidskommissionen, the Prime Minister's time-limited future commission (Sweden); National Planning Commission foresight work for Malawi 2063 (Malawi); Bureau National de la Prospective et de la Veille Stratégique and the national prospective studies (Côte d'Ivoire); Teknologiraadet, the Norwegian Board of Technology (Norway); Teknologiraadet, the Danish Board of Technology, abolished in 2012 (Denmark); Bureau federal du Plan (Belgium); Special Secretariat of Foresight (now of Long-term Planning) (Greece); STRATA foresight for the Lietuva 2050 state progress strategy (Lithuania); Institut Royal des Etudes Stratégiques (IRES) (Morocco); Long-term Insights Briefings under the Public Service Act 2020 (New Zealand); Foresight und Technikfolgenabschätzung für das österreichische Parlament (Austria); Latvija 2050 long-term scenario framework for the State Chancellery (Latvia); Natsionalnyi instytut stratehichnykh doslidzhen, and its falling staff ceiling (Ukraine); Prognoz nauchno-tekhnologicheskogo razvitiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii na period do 2030 goda (Russia); Agency for Strategic Planning, merged into a ministry in 2002 (Kazakhstan); Institut Tunisien des Études Stratégiques (ITES) (Tunisia); Cabinet Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), Afaq Mostaqbaliya (Egypt).

Missing indicators: Government foresight capacity, Long-horizon research commitments.

What to measure first

The evidence is too thin to manage these dimensions confidently.

What to keep watching

These dimensions score at least 50 with usable evidence.

DimensionScoreConfidence
Adaptability72.40.53

Missing data

18 requested indicators have no comparable dataset, and each one lowers confidence. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.

DimensionMissing indicatorWhat it asks
AnticipationGovernment foresight capacityExistence, mandate and continuity of a national strategic foresight function.
AnticipationLong-horizon research commitmentsNew competitively awarded public research grants that run for five years or longer, as a share of all new competitive public research grants awarded in the year.
AgencyAdults doing digital tasksShare of adults who carried out a named digital task in the last three months, such as sending a message with an attached file, moving a file between devices or using a spreadsheet formula, counted one task at a time and never as a skill level.
CoordinationUniversity-industry collaborationIntensity of research collaboration between universities and firms.
CoordinationPublic-private collaborationFrequency and scale of joint public-private delivery of national objectives.
TrustTrust in public institutionsConfidence in national government, courts and civil service.
TrustCourt case clearance rateCivil and commercial cases resolved in a year as a share of cases filed in the same year.
LearningAdult learning participationShare of adults in formal or non-formal education and training in the last 12 months.
ExperimentationVenture dealsFirst venture capital rounds closed by companies based in the country in the year, per million people, counted by deal and never by amount.
ExperimentationFirms through regulatory sandboxesFirms admitted to, and firms completing, a regulatory sandbox or controlled trial regime in the year, per million people, summed across every regulator in the country.
ExperimentationUniversity spinoutsCompanies formed to commercialise university research, per million people.
AdaptabilityDisaster preparedness and recoveryDemonstrated capacity to prepare for and recover from major shocks.
AdaptabilityInstitutional responsivenessSpeed at which rules and public programmes are changed in response to new conditions.
BuildingLarge project deliveryCost and schedule performance of major public infrastructure projects.
BuildingFirm scale-up rateShare of young firms reaching significant employment or turnover thresholds.
Shared PurposeSense of national belongingReported identification with and attachment to the national community, as distinct from pride in the nation.
Shared PurposeVolunteeringShare of adults who volunteered time to an organisation in the last month.
Shared PurposePolitical polarisationDegree to which political differences run along a single hostile divide.

What the indicators miss about Iran

Documented deliveries linked to missing indicators. They do not affect scores or confidence.

  • Targeted Subsidy Reform cash transfer, and its erosion (Adaptability)

    Iran's government replaced universal fuel and bread subsidies with a universal cash transfer of 455,000 rials (about US$40) per person per month from late 2010, then left the transfer unindexed, so that by 2019 its purchasing power had fallen to less than US$6 per person before a top-up was added in late 2019.

  • Earthquake Emergency Recovery after the 2002 Changureh-Avaj earthquake (Adaptability)

    After the April 2002 earthquake in Kermanshah and the June 2002 earthquake in Qazvin, Zanjan and Hamedan, Iran's Ministry of Interior project unit and the Housing Foundation repaired or rebuilt about 24,000 damaged houses to seismic standards by June 2009, using government funds and a US$180 million World Bank loan, of which US$174.9 million was disbursed.

  • Tehran Sewerage Project (first phase: interceptors, trunk main and southern treatment plant) (Building)

    The Tehran Sewerage Company built interceptors, trunk mains, tunnels and a wastewater treatment plant under the first phase of the Tehran Sewerage Project at a latest estimated cost of US$359.22 million against US$341.45 million at appraisal in 2000, with the treatment works costing 189 percent of their estimate and the loan closing on 30 June 2008, two years late, before the plant and the eastern trunk main were finished.

  • Mohit-e azmoon-e tanzimgari (regulatory sandbox) of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Experimentation)

    The Central Bank of Iran's regulatory sandbox, run by its subsidiary the National Informatics Corporation as secretariat, received 10 applications in its first call (July to August 2022) and admitted two to testing, rejected seven and saw one withdrawn, and a second call drew five applications, all of which were under review when the secretariat published its one-year report in August 2023.

  • University contracts with society and industry, MSRT monitoring (Coordination)

    Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology recorded more than 8,700 contracts in progress between universities and higher education centres on one side and industry and executive bodies on the other in its 1400 (2021/22) monitoring, worth about 3,106 billion tomans.

  • Technical and Vocational Training Organization public centres (Learning)

    Iran's Technical and Vocational Training Organization trained 376,248 people in its fixed public centres in the Iranian year 1394 (2015/16), up from 322,657 the year before, in industry, services, culture and arts, and agriculture courses, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran yearbook.

  • Center for the Islamic Iranian Model of Progress (Markaz-e Olgu) (Anticipation)

    Iran's Center for the Islamic Iranian Model of Progress, set up by decree of the Leader on 2 Khordad 1390 (May 2011), drafted a document that sets the country's desired horizon for the next five decades, which the Leader issued for review on 22 Mehr 1397 (October 2018), and reports that it analysed 5,300 critiques and proposals on that draft and received 3,803 papers over its first fourteen annual conferences.

Contribute

Fill a gap, file evidence or challenge an indicator at github.com/envisioning/national-capability-benchmark. The docs explain the method and decisions.