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MALAYSIA VS ASEAN · RESEARCH TALENT · 2022
How dense is Malaysia's researcher base?
UNESCO researchers in R&D per million people, in full-time-equivalent terms, distributed through the World Bank.
SHOW ME THE DATA2022 · researchers in R&D · per 1 million people
VIEW DATA ASSame source · different visual lens
2022
1Singapore9Kresearchers in R&D · per 1 million people
2Thailand2Kresearchers in R&D · per 1 million people
3Malaysia1Kresearchers in R&D · per 1 million people
4Brunei Darussalam506researchers in R&D · per 1 million people
5Myanmar26researchers in R&D · per 1 million people
UIFUNESCO Institute for Statistics via World Bankresearchers in R&D · per 1 million people
SourceUNESCO Institute for Statistics via World Bank ↗2022 same-year request · checked 3 Oct 2026HIGH CONFIDENCE
Method & notes
Malaysia is #3/5 in the same-year 2022 ASEAN subset by researchers per million people.
METHOD & LIMITATIONSHow the numbers were calculated
PulseKita requests World Bank indicator SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6 for all 11 ASEAN members and fixes the comparison to 2022, Malaysia's latest observation in the current source series. Older observations are not carried forward.
- Malaysia records about 1,218 researchers per million people in 2022 and ranks #3/5 among ASEAN members with a same-year observation.
- No 2022 value shown for: Indonesia, Viet Nam, Philippines, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Timor-Leste.
- Researchers are measured in full-time-equivalent terms and include professionals engaged in creating new knowledge, products, processes, methods or systems.
- Researcher density is a capacity measure; it does not directly measure research quality, commercialisation or innovation outcomes.
Evidence trail
EVIDENCE CHAINtransformation inherited from methodology
- 1Declared sourceResearchers in R&D (per million people)
- 2TransformationPulseKita requests World Bank indicator SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6 for all 11 ASEAN members and fixes the comparison to 2022, Malaysia's latest observation in the current source series. Older observations are not carried forward.
- 3Published visualRanked snapshot
Source
HIGH CONFIDENCEofficial primary
COVERAGE2022
UNITresearchers in R&D · per 1 million people
SOURCEofficial publication
UPDATED2022 same-year request · checked 3 Oct 2026