The World Bank asked The Economist Intelligence Unit to develop a benchmarking index that would measure the economic potential of women both as workers and entrepreneurs at the country level. We worked with the Bank to create the Women’s Economic Opportunity Index, which examines conditions in more than 100 countries in such areas as labour policy, education, access to finance and social and cultural norms. The index included newly created indicators on women’s labour market implementation, availability of childcare and the presence of training programmes. The results were presented in a report and in an interactive Excel tool that allows users to compare results across countries and correlate index scores with potential drivers of women’s economic advancement.

The British Council was interested in mapping cross-border student mobility in a number of developed and emerging economies. The Economist Intelligence Unit provided extensive research on the political and economic upside and downside risks for cross-country student mobility in sample countries, with a 5-year outlook. This research was supplemented by an analysis of recent developments in legislation, tuition fees, employment outlooks and education industry trends. The Economist Intelligence Unit also built a forecasting model to predict the total number of tertiary level students pursuing education in a foreign country, with a 5-year outlook, indicating a baseline and positive and negative scenarios. The research was presented in a series of country-specific reports.

The impact of climate change and natural disasters on social and economic well-being has been a pressing concern for many years. Cities are especially vulnerable to the consequences of climate change, and in response to this The Economist Intelligence Unit was commissioned by Siemens to produce the Green City Index (GCI) series. The GCI measures the performance of more than 120 cities in areas of environmental sustainability across nine categories and approximately 30 indicators, including CO2 emissions, energy use, buildings, land use, transport, water and sanitation, waste management, air quality and environmental governance. Six regional Green Cities series have been launched since 2007, covering the US and Canada; Latin America; Germany; Europe; Asia, and Africa.

Pearson, the multinational education company, asked The Economist Intelligence Unit to carry out an independent study to help policymakers, school leaders and academics identify the key factors that drive improved educational outcomes. We developed an internationally comparable database on education alongside economic and social data from 50 countries in an original, publicly accessible, open-source format. We also produced a report drawing on extensive desk research, as well as in-depth interviews conducted with experts in education. The contents of this research provide a platform for policy dialogue and reform in the education space worldwide.

At the request of Citigroup, The Economist Intelligence Unit was asked to assess the current competitiveness of more than 100 cities around the world and, in a follow-up effort, to project their competitive ranking more than a decade into the future. The Hotspots reports looked at the drivers of city competitiveness, including economic strength, availability of talent, environmental performance and global and cultural appeal. The 2025 report required The EIU to use its forecasting models to assess economic growth more than ten years ahead. The first Hotspots report was launched with the participation of then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and both studies were widely covered in the global media.

The Economist Intelligence Unit is working with the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) on a project to incorporate the potential impacts of natural disasters into business planning and investment decisions. Through the UN’s R!SE Initiative, the EIU will build a new kind of operational risk model that evaluates the threats from natural disasters at the country level alongside more traditional measures of the business operating environment, such as economic growth and quality of infrastructure. We will then use this work to attempt to calculate a disaster risk-specific discount rate for countries that can be used by companies to understand the returns they can expect on their investments. A distinguished group of private sector and academic organisations is also participating in the project.

Public-private partnerships (PPP) are an important way to leverage resources for developing vital infrastructure projects. The Economist Intelligence Unit, using its well-developed skills in country benchmarking, was asked by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to determine the capacity and readiness of countries in the region to engage successfully in PPPs. Using a model we first developed for the Inter-American Development Bank, we worked with the ADB to modify it for Asian economies, and we added a sub-national component for an important country in the region. The index was supplemented by a report that fully explained the findings and methodology.

With increasing longevity and ageing populations, demand for end-of-life care is likely to rise sharply. However, many countries, including rich ones, fail to incorporate palliative care strategies into their overall healthcare policy. To help the Lien Foundation raise awareness around these issues, The Economist Intelligence Unit devised a Quality of Death Index ranking 40 countries on their provision of end-of-life care. We also interviewed global experts to develop a white paper on the topic. The index is widely regarded as the first attempt to compare the palliative care environment within a comparable framework. The index spurred numerous policy debates, and four years after the launch is still covered in international media.

The Institute for Economics and Peace asked The Economist Intelligence Unit to help design an index ranking countries based on their "absence of violence". The Global Peace Index, which assesses 162 countries, looks at peace across a number of categories, including militarisation, ongoing conflict, and safety and security. The indicators are scored using both external and internal sources, including qualitative assessments by The Economist Intelligence Unit’s in-house country analysts. Now in its seventh edition, the index is the world’s leading measure of national peacefulness and is currently used by many international organisations, governments and NGOs, including the World Bank, the OECD, and the United Nations.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is currently implementing a long-awaited programme to create new generic top-level domain names for the Internet. The Economist Intelligence Unit was selected by ICANN to provide analysis in two important areas: applications involving geographic names, and those in which applicants represent a community. Working with ICANN, we developed a detailed framework for reviewing the applications, based on the approved Applicant Guidebook. For all stages of the evaluation process, we drew on our knowledge of countries, our global network of analysts and our expertise developing scoring and benchmarking methodologies.

The Washington, DC-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), led by former US Senator Sam Nunn, works to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. NTI and The Economist Intelligence Unit have worked to create two editions of the landmark Nuclear Materials Security Index, which assesses efforts at the national level to protect weapons-usable materials from theft. The project is guided by an international panel of experts, and national governments are invited to participate in the data-gathering process. The index has featured prominently at global nuclear materials summits, including the 2014 gathering at The Hague.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has joined with the Inter-American Development Bank Group on many benchmarking projects, including the Global Microscope on Microfinance; the Infrascope (a measure of public-private partnerships in Latin America); and the Women’s Entrepreneurial Venture Scope, which assess conditions for the growth of women’s businesses in the region. The Microscope, which is evolving in 2014 into a wider analysis of access to finance, is in its eighth year, and is also supported by the Latin American Development Bank (CAF), the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, and Citibank. Each of the IDB projects features a benchmarking index that allows users to understand the drivers of each policy goal and identify strengths and areas for improvement.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on several important initiatives. We contributed economic analysis and modelling to a project that sought to further three key foundation goals: lifting millions of subsistence African farmers above the poverty line, providing vaccines to children under one year of age, and improving access to clean water and sanitation for populations in selected developing countries. We are currently working with the Gates Foundation and other partners to build a database assessing the progress of women and girls in nearly 200 countries during the last two decades.

The Economist Intelligence Unit was commissioned by a UK public agency to examine higher education environments in Ghana, Pakistan, Myanmar and Sierra Leone. The emphasis of the study was on the dynamics of demand and supply as well as on the interests and incentives driving stakeholders. We developed a diagnostic framework for higher education following a detailed review of relevant literature. Based on the framework, we produced case studies examining higher education environments in the selected countries. An additional report summarised the similarities and differences between countries and discussed the implications for policy.

A government agency in the Middle East commissioned The Economist Intelligence Unit to write a thought-provoking paper highlighting cutting-edge government policies across the globe in such areas as innovation, service provision, the measurement of well-being, use of ICT in government, the role of cost-benefit analysis in policymaking, and identification of future trends. We secured interviews with leading specialists in each field and explained the enabling factors required to make each new policy a success. The client used the research as a source of inspiration and internal debate, to learn from international best practices, and to understand the challenges associated with each of them.

A government client was interested in better understanding how transnational education qualifications offered in an Asian country were perceived compared with degrees offered at the parent institutes and universities. Through a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, The Economist Intelligence Unit developed a research framework to assess the quality of degree programmes offered in the parent and receiving university. We conducted more than 30 interviews and used social media sentiment analysis to better understand differences in service provision. The findings were presented in a report that also outlined policy implications. Our research supported strategic transformations to regulations around private university programmes.