Each record describes something a country built that the indicators miss. The source provides the number; the mechanism is our interpretation.
Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 44 of 44 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.
Brazil created a public agricultural research corporation in 1973 to make acidic tropical soils productive, kept it funded across every change of government since, and cereal production rose from 46.5 million tonnes in 2000 to 155.9 million in 2023.
155,877,082 tonnes, cereal production, 2023. World Bank, from FAO, retrieved 2026-08-26.
The move, and what it needed
A public research corporation with its own budget line, staffed by researchers sent abroad to train and then brought back, mandated against one specific national constraint rather than research in general.
Preconditions
A named constraint worth fifty years of work
Budget continuity across governments
A private sector able to absorb the results
Where it travelled: The model of a mission-specific public research corporation is highly transferable. The fifty years of funding continuity is the part nobody can procure.
Limits: Production is an outcome and the credit is shared with land expansion, subsidised credit and private plant breeding, so this number cannot separate the research from the rest. It also cannot see the cost: much of the expansion came from converting cerrado and forest. What the record actually evidences is fifty years of continuity in a public research mandate, which is the part no dataset measures.
🇳🇱Netherlandssince 2010still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
The Netherlands legislated a standing programme against flooding and fresh-water shortage, run by an independent Delta Commissioner and paid from a dedicated Delta Fund that expects 27.4 billion euros to be available through 2050.
Parliament wrote the Delta Act: a permanent commissioner proposes a rolling programme each year, statutory safety standards make the work non-optional, and a ring-fenced fund keeps the money out of annual budget fights.
Preconditions
A shared national threat no party disputes
Water authorities with their own tax base, older than the state
Fiscal room to ring-fence a billion a year for decades
Where it travelled: Bangladesh's Delta Plan 2100 was written with Dutch help and copies the programme form. The statutory fund and the commissioner's independence are the parts that travel least, because they require a legislature to give up annual control.
Limits: A budget is an input: the number shows money committed, not risk reduced, and the same page says 30.8 billion is needed, so the fund is currently short of its own task. Spending on water at this scale is also ordinary for the Netherlands, which has run such works for a century. What the record evidences is the institutional form, a legally required programme, commissioner and fund that outlive governments, not the size of the number.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 1991still operatingbears on Long-horizon research share
Law 8.248/1991 tied information-technology incentives to annual research, development and innovation investment of at least 5 percent of eligible domestic gross revenue, creating a predictable regime for sectoral capability.
The state exchanges a sector-specific incentive for commitments to domestic research, development, training and innovation, giving firms a reason to make longer-horizon plans within a stable policy frame.
Preconditions
A government able to target fiscal incentives at a defined industrial sector
Firms with enough domestic revenue to sustain the investment requirement
Administrative capacity to review projects and monitor the obligation
Limits: The legal investment requirement is an input, not evidence of research quality, exports or firm growth. The regime is narrow, has been amended repeatedly and creates a renewal pressure that makes continuity part of the case rather than a settled result.
🇧🇷Brazilsince 2001still operatingbears on Government foresight capacity
Created in 2001, the Centro de Gestão e Estudos Estratégicos was designed to produce prospective studies and long-term recommendations for Brazilian science, technology and innovation policy, with 273 researchers and specialists signing its creation record.
Government creates a distinct organization to turn evidence and expert networks into long-horizon options, giving policymakers a place to ask what future conditions require before a crisis sets the agenda.
Preconditions
A ministry willing to give a foresight body room to examine its own assumptions
A network of researchers and institutions that can contribute expertise
A route from prospective studies into planning and policy decisions
Limits: The creation record and a mandate for prospective studies show institutional intent, not whether foresight changes decisions or survives political pressure. CGEE operates within the science and technology policy system, so its reach does not cover every part of government.