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Our World In Data (OWID) is an online publication that presents empirical research and data that show how living conditions around the world are changing. The web publication on global development communicates this empirical knowledge through interactive data visualisations (charts and maps) and by presenting the research findings on development that explain what drives the changes that we observe and what the consequences of these changes are. The aim is to show how the world is changing and why.
The publication is developed at the University of Oxford and authored by social historian and development economist Max Roser. It covers a wide range of topics across many academic disciplines: Trends in health, food provision, the growth and distribution of incomes, violence, rights, wars, culture, energy use, education, and environmental changes are empirically analysed and visualised in this web publication.
Covering all of these aspects in one resource makes it possible to understand how the observed long-run trends are interlinked. The research on global development is presented to the audience of interested readers, journalists, academics, and policy people. The articles cross-reference each other to make it possible for the reader to learn about the drivers of the observed long-run trends. For each topic the quality of the data is discussed and, by pointing the visitor to the sources, this website works as a database of databases – a meta-database.
Our World In Data is made available as a public good:
Our World in Data is currently financed entirely through small individual donations from readers of the publication. The website is used widely in the media. Authors like John Green and Steven Berlin Johnson use it for their work. It is used in teaching by economists, historians, and international development experts.
Tina Rosenberg emphasised in The New York Times that Our World In Data presents a “big picture that’s an important counterpoint to the constant barrage of negative world news”. Steven Pinker placed Roser’s Our World In Data on his list of his personal “cultural highlights” and explained in his article on 'the most interesting recent scientific news' why he considers Our World In Data so very important.