Researchers per million inhabitants by country, 1996–2018 (in full-time equivalents)
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The line labeled 1 368 is the global researcher density in 2018.
By 2018, the number of researchers per million inhabitants had grown by 9.9% since 2014. China and the European Union each contributed to over a quarter of this global increase.
The world’s researchers remain distributed unevenly. For example, sub-Saharan Africa is home to 14% of the world’s people but only 0.7% of the world’s researchers, as of 2018.
Between 2014 and 2018, the researcher pool grew three times faster (13.7%) than the global population (4.6%). Without China, the surge in researcher numbers (11.5%) would have been only double the rate of population growth (5.2%). In 2018, China accounted for 21.1% of global researchers, just shy of the EU’s own share of 23.5%. The USA contributed a further 16.2% (2017).
Low-income economies have witnessed the fastest growth (+36%) in researcher density since 2014 but still account for only 0.2% of the world’s researchers. Some of the greatest percentage changes are occurring in developing countries such as Jordan, Mauritius, Iran and Ethiopia.
In 2014, Latin America crossed the symbolic threshold of counting one researcher per 1 000 labour force. Three years later, the regional average had inched up to 1.03. Argentina had the largest proportion of researchers (2.91), followed by Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay. Stagnating growth in research intensity in some countries could compromise these gains.
Note: Data are not available for all countries. A full-time equivalent is based on the ratio of working hours actually spent on research and development (R&D) during a specific reference period (usually a calendar year) divided by the total number of hours conventionally worked in the same period by an individual or by a group. One FTE may be thought as one person-year. A person who normally spends 30% of their time on R&D and the rest on other activities (such as teaching, university administration and student counselling) should be considered as 0.3 FTE. Similarly, if a full-time R&D worker is employed at an R&D unit for only six months, this results in an FTE of 0.5.
Source: UNESCO Science Report: the Race Against Time for Smarter Development (2021), data sourced from UNESCO Institute for Statistics and animated by Values Associates
