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Executive summary

The edition on a few pages: the abstract, the key messages, the headline finding and what each steward reads in it.

6 min read1 figure0 tables13 notesNR-SECTOR-SCIENCE-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
    1. S.1 Abstract
    2. S.2 Key messages
    3. S.3 Headline finding
    4. S.4 At a glance
    5. S.5 What each steward reads in it
    6. S.6 What this edition is, and is not
  3. 1Science is where the frontier is made
  4. 2Key findings
  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

S.1Abstract

The world enters 2027 with a science and engineering system that is larger, more automated and less evenly shared than at any earlier baseline. Worldwide research and development spending is estimated at USD 3.48 trillion in 2024 on a comparable basis, and China (30%) and the United States (29%) together account for more than half1. UNESCO data put the world at 1.92% of GDP in 2023 and 1,486 researchers per million people, with Sub-Saharan Africa at 88 and Northern America at 5,0062. Output keeps rising: 3.5 million scientific articles in 2024, 22% of them with international co-authors1, and 284,486 arXiv submissions in 20255. The record is under strain. Crossref registered 15,582 retraction notices in 2023 and 7,632 in 2025, and case studies show coordinated fraud growing faster than legitimate science614. AI is now part of research itself: 5.8% to 8.8% of scientific output by field, though the best agents reach about half of PhD experts on end-to-end research tasks9. Five exascale systems now appear on the TOP500 list4, and a 101-qubit surface-code memory has run below the error-correction threshold10. This baseline sets out what the evidence supports and where it is thin. It ranks no country and recommends no policy.

S.2Key messages

Six readings that frame the science and engineering baseline, and the eight questions this edition answers, each with its status and source.

  1. About USD 3.48 trillion in 2024; the share of GDP depends on the issuer.123

    How much does the world spend on research?Reported

  2. China and the United States together perform more than half of spending; researcher density differs widely across regions.12

    Who does the research?Reported

  3. Yes. 3.5 million articles in 2024 and 284,486 arXiv submissions in 2025.15

    Is the literature growing?Reported

  4. Retractions and paper-mill fraud are rising pressures; the share of the record affected is not known.614

    Can the record be trusted?Reported

  5. It is a growing part of output, but agents reach about half of expert scores on research tasks.9

    What is AI doing in science?Reported

  6. Five exascale systems exist on the TOP500 list; industry builds most notable models.48

    Who has frontier compute?Reported

  7. Large open archives exist for structures and species records.122223

    Is biology data open?Reported

  8. A loss of trust in the research record during an emergency. SCN-GS15-INT-01

    What will 2027 test first?Expert input

S.3Headline 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 S.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.

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.

S.4At a glance

3.48USD trillion

global R&D, 20241

1,486per million

researchers, 20232

3.5million

articles, 20241

284,486submissions

arXiv, 20255

7,632notices

retraction notices, 20256

5systems

exascale, June 20264

S.5What each steward reads in it

GCRI · KEY T

Technical Truth

The evidence supports reading science and engineering as the discovery layer of the WEFH+B system.

GRF · KEY M

Public Meaning

For most people science arrives as a medicine, a forecast or a news story.

GRA · KEY F

Capital Meaning

Readiness implications only. R&D spending is large, venture investment was USD 354 billion in 2024 and public programmes are multi-year.

NEXUS

Synthesis

The research system is well measured at the level of spending, people and output and thinly measured at the level of replication, reuse and integrity.

S.6What this edition is, and is not

What this edition is

A baseline: the 2026 state of the world’s science and engineering enterprise and the couplings through which it carries risk into other systems. It synthesises published evidence and ranks no country, company or asset.

What it is not

Not a ranking of countries or institutions, a forecast of discoveries, a funding recommendation or an assessment of any university, laboratory, funder, publisher or government. Research policy, funding and conduct rest with national authorities, funders, institutions and researchers.

What comes next

National, regional and sector evidence feeds the 2027 science and engineering edition through the federation. Each edition reports what changed against this baseline: observations, source revisions, method changes, scenario updates and corrections.

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. 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
  2. 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
  3. 5POST-CLOSE, context only: arXiv (ed.), Monthly submissions statistics (monthly CSV, 1991 to November 2026; annual totals summed by the editors). Cornell University, Ithaca. Observation year 2025. 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. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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
  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

Cite this summary

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Executive summary: Executive summary. 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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