2019 Think Tank State of the Sector

The first think tank state of the sector report, based on analysis of 2019 data of 2,802 active think tanks from the Open Think Tank Directory, provides an overview of the sector and uncovers underlying trends. The findings (representative at the sample level)  help answer questions such us: what are the most common topics think tanks work on? What’s the average age, or the median staff size or annual turnover of a think tank? How many female versus male think tank founders and leaders are there? How does this vary between regions and business models?

The report is structured as follows: first we give an overview of the data and the level of completeness of each variable; we then move on to describe the regional breakdown, topics of focus, date founded, gender of founder, gender of leaders, business models, social media, staff, publications, turnover, and an analysis of descriptions and straplines. We compare and analyse each variable with each other to provide a detailed analysis of the data. The report ends with key conclusions and ideas for further development of the database.