Think tank state of the sector 2020–2021

The Open Think Tank Directory (OTTD) was born to overcome the shortage of publicly available information about think tanks and other policy research centres and expertise bodies worldwide. On Think Tanks has been working on it since 2016, and the directory currently features information from over 3,000 think tanks worldwide.

This year we published our second Think tank state of the sector report. This time, the global report is accompanied by four regional briefs that go deeper into the regional data and offer a more nuanced view of the different think tank contexts.

The OTTD and Think tank state of the sector report do not make any evaluations, assessments or judgements of the organisations it features; it merely provides information about them, in a transparent manner, with the objective of providing a public (and freely accessible) information on think tanks.

Read the global report and regional brief.

Highlights:

Regions

Among think tanks registered in the OTTD, the average number of think tanks per country is 21. But there is great variability within regions (and countries).

We found that the higher the GDP of a country, the higher the number of think tanks it hosts.

The five countries with the highest number of think tanks in the database are the US (452 organisations,), China (188) Germany (184), UK (150) and France (99).

Topic of focus

Most think tanks focus on just a couple of key topics, rather than being generalists.

The most popular topics among think tanks in the database are social policy, trade/economics/finance, governance/transparency and environment/natural resources/energy.

Date founded

The global average age for think tanks in 2021 was 30 years.

There has been a steady increase in the number of think tanks founded by year, and the average peak is around the 2000s. The last decade has seen a slow decline in the number of think tanks founded across all regions.

Think tanks in USA & Canada are the oldest on average (37) and reached their peak in the 1980s. South & Eastern Europe (26), West & Central Asia (23) and Africa (22) are the youngest on average.

Gender of founder

Think tanks are predominantly male founded: 55% of organisations in the directory were founded only by men, 15% by both male and female co-founders, 5% by women only. And 24% by other entities (e.g., governments, universities, companies, religious orders, international organisations, etc.).

The percentage of all-male-founded think tanks has slowly decreased year by year, but mostly giving way to male and female co-founded think tanks.

Latin America & the Caribbean has the highest percentage of think tanks with both male and female founders (31%), followed by South & Eastern Europe (23%) and Africa (21%).

These three regions also have a younger think tank sector, so this higher percentage of females in founding members could be due to the increasing participation of women in the political and private sector.

But nonetheless there is still a long way ahead, and even in those think tanks founded between 2010 and 2019, 47% were founded by only men (across the world).

Gender and leadership

In 2021 think tanks continue to be male led: 72% of think tanks in the database are led by men, 26% by women and a small number of think tanks (3%) are led by both men and women.

In Eastern Asia the percentage of female-led think tanks is substantially lower than average (9%) and the percentage of male-led organisations is the highest (89%).

Conversely Latin America & the Caribbean (34%), South & Eastern Europe (30%) and USA & Canada (29%) have the highest percentage of female leaders, but we are still far away from equality.

Business model

Most think tanks in the Directory are nonprofit organisations (67%), followed by university institutes/centres (16%), government organisations (8%), for-profit organisations (5%) and a small group of other types (4%).

And this trend is almost the same across the world, except in Eastern Asia (and China in particular) which has the highest percentage of government think tanks (41%).

Publications

Most think tanks in the database with data on publications have published up to 10 pieces of written work in 2020 (38%). 33% had 11 to 150 publications.

Only 8% of think tanks published more than 150 pieces, and 7% did not publish anything in 2020.

Think tanks in Eastern Asia, USA & Canada and West & Northern Europe publish more than their counterparts in other regions.

As expected, organisations with a higher staff number publish more than those with a smaller staff.

An interesting finding is that organisations founded by only women, and those led by women, have a lower publication count than those founded and/or led by men. They generally have fewer staff and less turnover, which could be affecting their smaller publication numbers.

Turnover

Most organisations do not show or share their turnover information in an accessible fashion (data is held for only 8% of the organisations included in this report).

In terms of regional differences Eastern Asia and USA & Canada have the majority of think tanks with a turnover of over USD 10 million, while the majority of think tanks in Africa and South & Eastern Europe have a turnover of less than USD 500,000.

Staff

The median staff number in 2021 is 18 (down from 19 in 2019) and on average 47% of staff are women.

The region with the highest median is Eastern Asia, but this number is led by China and the government organisations within it that make up the sample.

There is a tendency for older organisations, and those male-led or male founded, to have more staff; also, think tanks founded by entities have the highest average and median staff size. A

From 2019 to 2021: A third of organisations decreased in staff size, but 47% increased.

Social media

The social media channels that feature most prominently in the directory are Facebook (75% of organisations have an account registered) and Twitter (72%), followed by YouTube (46%), LinkedIn (46%) and Instagram (27%).

There is little social media data registered for Eastern Asia because the channels that the directory registers are either not the most popular in the region or are limited or banned by governments.

As we continue to update the Directory, we will continue to produce yearly State of the Sector reports. We hope that this report provides a rich and useful overview of the sector across the world, and we invite you to explore the data and share your perspective and insights on the trends.