Our World in Data receives research grant to further work on presenting global development

02 February 2018

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A grant of almost $1.8 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is enabling Oxford Martin programme Our World in Data to secure and enhance its work presenting the empirical research and data on global development.

The free online publication Our World in Data presents a global overview on how living conditions are changing. The aim is to show, through the visualisation of empirical data, how health, education, poverty, violence, hunger and environmental conditions are changing over time, across the world. Recent work by the programme looks at the decline of maternal mortality, historical famines, and extreme poverty. The evidence on many other aspects is available via OurWorldInData.org.

The new grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will provide crucial support for the Our World in Data project team to continue to develop its important work, to increase the project’s reach, and expand the aspects of global development covered by the project.

Dr. Max Roser, Project Director, says the aim of Our World in Data is to “make research and information on how our world is changing available, for free, to a wide audience, and entirely in the spirit of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Transparency Philosophy. We publish all our work openly so that it can be the input to the work of others and useful for decision-making.

Established three years ago with the aim of improving perceptions and the understanding of global development, Our World in Data now has a large following among journalists, policymakers, academics, and students. The project was most recently highlighted in The New York Times, Why 2017 Was the Best Year in Human History.

The primary focus of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is to enhance global health and reduce extreme poverty. Its main priorities lie in global health, global development, U.S. education, and global policy & advocacy. The foundation frequently highlights the urgent need for better global health data, particularly if we are to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

Max Roser said “for the generous support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation we’re extremely grateful. The publication is intended to be a public good, free for everyone to use, and it was not easy to find the financial support necessary to make this possible. We are very much looking forward to the work in the coming years!”

In addition to the grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Our World in Data has also received generous support and enhancement from the German entrepreneur, businesswoman and philanthropist Susanne Klatten.