Our World in Data

Our World in Data is a British data visualization project based in the United Kingdom.

Our World in Data notes that it has four main sources of research it uses for publication: “specialized institutes” such as the Peace Research Institute Oslo, research articles, international institutions like the World Bank, and “official data from government sources.”¹⁾

Our World in Data began as compiled research notes written by Global Change Data Lab founder Max Roser in 2011. Roser originally aimed to write a book on international issues before deciding to create a website.²⁾

Roser created the first version of Our World in Data in 2013 and applied for a research grant from the London-based Nuffield Foundation, which initially rejected the application but accepted a renewed application in 2014 and provided OWID with a grant of £75,883 (approximately $90,318).

In 2018, OWID successfully applied to startup incubator Y Combinator, becoming part of the YC Winter 2019 batch of startups.³⁾

The organization began the COVID-19 pandemic with six staff members, and grew to 20 by late 2021.^{4) 5)}

OWID is a project of the Global Change Data Lab (GCDL) and is hosted at the University of Oxford.⁶⁾

The project is funded by:^{9) 10) 11) 12)}

• InfluenceWatch
• Website
• Wikipedia