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Key findings

Twelve findings carry the science and engineering baseline. They are grouped by coupling and never ranked. Each resolves to its source or, where Nexus analysis is involved, to its stated method.

5 min read1 figure0 tables15 notesNR-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Science is where the frontier is made
  4. 2Key findings
    1. 2.1 Headline finding
    2. 2.2 Finance
    3. 2.3 Data and digital
    4. 2.4 Trade
    5. 2.5 Governance
    6. 2.6 AIC
    7. 2.7 Infrastructure
    8. 2.8 Biodiversity
    9. 2.9 Health
    10. 2.10 Systemic
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Loss of trust in the research record during a fast-moving emergency
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

2.1Headline finding

ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-DAT-003

In 2023, the world had 1,486 researchers per million people, with 88 in Sub-Saharan Africa and 5,006 in Northern America.

Figure 2.1Researchers per million inhabitants (FTE), 2023
ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
Northern America5,006
Europe4,025
Eastern Asia2,632
World1,486
Latin America and the Caribbean668
Southern Asia347
Sub-Saharan Africa88

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, February 2026 data release2.

Implication

The distribution of people who can do research is far more uneven than the distribution of articles or spending. Least Developed Countries stand at 70 researchers per million and spend 0.28% of GDP on research, so knowledge made elsewhere is the main input to their decisions2. Women were 31.4% of researchers worldwide, with regional shares from 23.9% in Eastern Asia to 45.0% in Northern Africa2.

What would move it

The next UNESCO data release, national statistics on researcher headcount and the reconciliation with the World Bank series would each move this finding.

2.2Finance

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-001

    Worldwide R&D expenditure totalled USD 3.48 trillion in 2024 on a comparable basis; China held 30% and the United States 29%, and the EU-27 18%.1

  2. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-002

    World R&D intensity is 1.92% of GDP in 2023 in the UNESCO series, up from 1.71% in 2015, while the World Bank series shows 2.60% for 2023; the two issuers are not reconciled here.23

2.3Data and digital

  1. ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-DAT-003

    The world had 1,486 researchers per million people in 2023, against 1,141 in 2015, with 88 in Sub-Saharan Africa, 347 in Southern Asia and 5,006 in Northern America; women were 31.4% of researchers.2

2.4Trade

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-TRD-004

    Worldwide scientific output was 3.5 million articles in 2024, led by China (31%), the United States (12%) and India (7%), and 22% of articles had international co-authors, up from 19% in 2012.1

2.5Governance

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-GOV-005

    Crossref registered 15,582 retraction notices in 2023, 9,700 in 2024 and 7,632 in 2025, against 1,678 in 2015, and PNAS case studies conclude that fraudulent publications grow faster than legitimate science.6141

2.6AIC

  1. ReportedEQL 3NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-AIC-006

    AI accounts for 5.8% to 8.8% of scientific research output depending on the field, up from below 1% in 2010, and the best AI agents score 38.8% against 83.5% for PhD experts on a research-task benchmark.9

  2. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-AIC-007

    Training compute of notable ML systems doubled about every six months since the early 2010s, against about twenty months before 2010, and industry produced more than 90% of notable frontier models in 2025.138

2.7Infrastructure

  1. ReportedEQL 5NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-INF-008

    The June 2026 TOP500 list holds five exascale systems; LineShine in Shenzhen leads with 2.198 Eflop/s, and JUPITER Booster is the first European exascale system.4

  2. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-INF-009

    A 101-qubit distance-7 surface-code memory showed logical error suppressed by a factor of 2.14 for each step in code distance, with 0.143% error per cycle.10

2.8Biodiversity

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-BIO-010

    The AlphaFold database holds over 214 million predicted protein structures, the Protein Data Bank held 262,922 entries and GBIF held 3.89 billion occurrence records at access.122223

2.9Health

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-HLT-011

    The FDA gave marketing authorisation on 8 December 2023 to the first treatment using a novel genome-editing technology, and WHO published a framework in 2022 on governing dual-use life science research.1718

2.10Systemic

  1. Expert inputEQL 2NRF-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-SYS-012

    The leading compound pathway for 2027 testing is a loss of trust in the research record during a fast-moving emergency. § scenario

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 2UNESCO Institute for Statistics (ed.), UIS data API, data version 20260507 (February 2026 data release): indicators EXPGDP.TOT, RESDEN.INHAB.TFTE and FRESP.THC, world and regional aggregates. UNESCO, Montreal. Data pulled and read. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 1NSB (ed.), Science and Engineering Indicators 2026: The State of U.S. Science and Engineering (NSB-SEP-2026-1), May 2026, National Science Board and National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, US National Science Foundation, Alexandria. Full PDF opened; global R&D, publications, collaboration, venture investment, semiconductor and doctoral-degree figures read from the text. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 3DATA VINTAGE AFTER CLOSE: World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators API (series updated 2026-10-08, after the 30 September evidence close; cited as the position at access): GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS, SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6, IP.JRN.ARTC.SC, IP.PAT.RESD, IP.PAT.NRES, world values. World Bank, Washington. Data pulled and read. Observation year 2023 (patents 2024, researchers 2020). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 6Crossref (ed.), Crossref REST API, work counts by type and publication year and counts of retraction notices (update-type filter), queried live on the access date. Crossref, Oxford. Counts are subject to later registration. Observation year 2025 (series 2015 to 2025). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 14Richardson, R.A.K. et al., The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122(32), 2025 (abstract and open full text record read through Europe PMC). National Academy of Sciences, Washington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 9Stanford HAI (ed.), The 2026 AI Index Report, Chapter 5 Science, chapter page with its highlights. Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford. Page read; the chapter PDF was not opened. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 13Sevilla, J. et al., Compute Trends Across Three Eras of Machine Learning, arXiv 2202.05924, 2022 (abstract page read). Cornell University, Ithaca. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 8Stanford HAI (ed.), The 2026 AI Index Report, overview page with the ten top takeaways. Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford. Page read; the report PDF was not opened. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 4TOP500 project (ed.), TOP500 list, 67th edition, June 2026 (release text read in full for the leading systems). TOP500, Prometeus GmbH. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 10Google Quantum AI and collaborators, Quantum error correction below the surface code threshold, arXiv 2408.13687 (full text opened) and Nature 638, 920 to 926, 2024. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 12Varadi, M. et al., AlphaFold Protein Structure Database in 2024: providing structure coverage for over 214 million protein sequences, Nucleic Acids Research 52 (database issue), 368 to 375, 2024 (abstract read through Europe PMC). Oxford University Press, Oxford. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 22RCSB Protein Data Bank (ed.), Current holdings, list of entry identifiers (262,922 entries counted by the editors on the access date). Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 23GBIF (ed.), GBIF API, occurrence count and counts by year (3,890,294,224 records on the access date; 305,893,347 dated 2025). Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Copenhagen. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 17US Food and Drug Administration (ed.), FDA Approves First Gene Therapies to Treat Patients with Sickle Cell Disease, press announcement of 8 December 2023. FDA, Silver Spring. Page read. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  15. 18WHO (ed.), Global guidance framework for the responsible use of the life sciences: mitigating biorisks and governing dual-use research, 174 pages, 2022. World Health Organization, Geneva. Publication page and overview read; the full text was not opened. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 2: Key findings. In Nexus Global Science and Engineering Frontier Risk and Resilience Report 2026: Baseline Edition, The State of the World’s Science and Engineering Frontier. (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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