Our World in Data (OWID) is a scientific

online publication Electronic publishing (also referred to as e-publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, Online magazine, digital magazines, and the development of digital library, digital libraries and cat ...

that focuses on large global problems such as

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical condi ...

hunger In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In t ...

, war,

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

population growth Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. The World population, global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 8.2 billion in 2025. Actual global human population growth amounts to aroun ...

, existential risks, and inequality. It is a project of the Global Change Data Lab, a

registered charity A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, Religion, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definitio ...

in England and Wales, and was founded by Max Roser, a social

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

and development economist. The research team is based at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. The organization is chaired by Hetan Shah.

Content

Our World in Data uses interactive charts and maps to illustrate research findings, often taking a long-term view to show how global living conditions have changed over time. Two-centuries-World-as-100-people.png, Compilation of graphs from the organization, showing the overall global percentages of the last two centuries, in six factors: extreme poverty, democracy, basic education, vaccination, literacy, and child mortality Global annual CO2 emissions by world region since 1750.svg, Global emissions by world region since 1750 Global population cartogram.png, Cartogram showing the distribution of the global population. Each of the 15,266 pixels represents the home country of 500,000 people. As of April 2024, Our World in Data categorize their charts and articles by the following topics on their website: * Population and Demographic Change * Health * Energy and Environment * Food and Agriculture * Poverty and Economic Development * Education and Knowledge * Innovation and Technological Change * Living Conditions, Community, and Wellbeing * Human Rights and Democracy * Violence and War

History

Roser began his work on the project in 2011, adding a research team at the

later on. In the first years, Roser developed the publication together with inequality researcher Sir Tony Atkinson. Hannah Ritchie joined in 2017 and became Head of Research. Edouard Mathieu joined in 2020 and became Head of Data. The organization began the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

with six staff members, and grew to 20 by late 2021. In 2019, Our World in Data won the Lovie Award, a European web award, and was one of three

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

s in Y Combinator's Winter 2019 cohort. Beginning in 2020, Our World in Data added an emphasis on publishing global data and research on the COVID-19 pandemic: * They created and maintained a worldwide database on vaccinations for COVID-19, which was used as the source for data published by the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...

, researchers and other international organizations, journals, and numerous newspapers. * Similarly, the team built and maintained a global dataset on COVID-19 testing which was used by the United Nations, the White House, the World Health Organization, and epidemiologists and researchers, and also published data such as hospitalizations and computations of excess deaths. In 2021, the team began campaigning for the

International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the global energy sector. The 31 member countries and 13 associatio ...

to make the data it collects from national governments publicly available.

Funding and collaborations

Global Change Data Lab, the non-profit that publishes Our World in Data and the open-access data tools that make the online publication possible, is funded through a mix of grants, sponsors, and reader donations. * The first grant to support the research project was given by the Nuffield Foundation, a London-based foundation focused on social policy. * Other grantors supporting the project have included the Quadrature Climate Foundation, the

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be List of wealthiest charitable foundations, the third largest char ...

, and a grant from German philanthropist Susanne Klatten. In the past, Our World in Data has also received grants from the

, the Department of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom, and the Effective Altruism Meta Fund. * Reader donations are also a major source of funding. In 2020, more than 3,000 individuals supported the project, exceeding 4,000 donors by 2023. The list of donors includes Jamie Metzl and YouTuber

Hank Green William Henry Green II (born May 5, 1980) is an American YouTuber, science communicator, novelist, Stand-up comedy, stand-up comedian, and entrepreneur. He produces the YouTube channel Vlogbrothers with his older brother, author John Green, a ...

. The research team collaborated with the science YouTube channel Kurzgesagt. In the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the team partnered with epidemiologists from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

's Chan School of Public Health and the Robert Koch Institute to study countries that have responded successfully in the early phase of the pandemic. Janine Aron and John Muellbauer worked with OWID to research excess mortality during the pandemic. In 2022, FTX's Future Fund offered Our World in Data a $7.5 million grant to support their activities. Max Roser told Fortune that Our World in Data's board of trustees ultimately rejected the grant money after conducting due diligence and other checks.

Usage

In 2021, the Our World in Data website had 89 million unique visitors. Our World in Data has been cited in academic scientific journals, medicine and global health journals, and social science journals. ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', and ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'' have used Our World in Data as a source. The site uses permissive licenses to allow others to copy, modify, and distribute the work (

CC BY A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bui ...

for content and the

MIT License The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility. Unl ...

for software). (footer)

References

External links