Researchers per million inhabitants for the G20, 1996–2018 (in full-time equivalents)

Press play to watch the values change over time. You can pause or move the scroll bar to a specific year. The country bars will take some time to move to their final position after a year is selected. The bracket indicates the period of focus (2015–2018) of the 2021 edition of the UNESCO Science Report.
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By 2018, the global 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 G20 countries still account for nine-tenths of global research expenditure, researchers, publications and patents.

Yet there are significant differences even among G20 countries in researcher density relative to national populations. These differences impact trends in scientific output in the form of publications and patents.

Note: 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