Global Change Data Lab is a nonprofit organization and a registered charity in the education sector (Company Number 11725483 and Charity Number 1186433, Charity Commission for England and Wales).

Our purpose is to advance education in how global living conditions and the earth’s environment are changing, through the production and maintenance of public online resources. Our flagship project, the web publication ​ Our World in Data​ (ourworldindata.org), is focused on increasing the use of data and evidence to make progress against the world’s largest problems.

Our Work

We believe that a key reason why societies fail to achieve progress is that we do not make enough use of existing research and data: important knowledge is often stored in inaccessible databases, locked away behind paywalls and buried under jargon in academic papers.

Our work is therefore focused on producing free and open educational resources that help make the knowledge on the big problems accessible and understandable.

Visit our flagship project Our World in Data

Board of Trustees

Rachel Glennerster CMG, FRSA

Associate Professor of Economics, Division of Social Sciences, University of Chicago

Rachel Glennerster is an Associate Professor of Economics in the Division of Social Science at the University of Chicago. Her research includes randomized trials of health, women’s empowerment, education and political accountability in West Africa and South Asia as well as ways to stimulate innovation. She is Faculty Director of the Market Shaping Accelerator at UChicago which analysis approaches to shape markets to deliver innovation to solve the world’s most pressing problems. Rachel Glennerster served as Chief Economist at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for International Development in the UK and as Executive Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. In 2021, Pr. Glennerster was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for services to international development. She currently serves as Chair of the Board of Teaching at the Right Level Africa.

Sir Andrew William Dilnot CBE

Warden of Nuffield College

Andrew Dilnot is the Warden of Nuffield College Oxford. He was chair of the UK Statistics Authority from 2012 to 2017, the founding presenter of BBC Radio 4’s programme ‘More or Less’, the Principal of St Hugh’s College Oxford from 2002-2012, and the Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies from 1991-2002.

Dr. Claire Melamed

Chief Executive Officer at the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

Claire Melamed leads the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data’s Secretariat. She was previously Managing Director of the Overseas Development Institute, has worked in the office of the UN Secretary General, and for a number of NGOs. She is an Affiliated Researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and serves on the Board of Full Fact. She is based in London.

Michael Blastland

Writer and Broadcaster

Michael Blastland is a writer and broadcaster, best known as the creator (with Andrew Dilnot) of More or Less on Radio 4, and as presenter and producer of numerous other series. In a varied career, he’s also written several popular science books about numbers, chance, risk, and related subjects; was a board member of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication; has advised large-scale research projects; taught for many years on BBC courses for senior journalists and elsewhere; and most recently served as a non-executive director and deputy chair of Royal Papworth Hospital, and co-authored a BBC inquiry into the impartiality of its coverage of tax, public spending, borrowing, and debt.

Executive Directors

Dr. Esteban Ortiz-Ospina

Executive Co-Director, Global Change Data Lab
Oxford Martin Associate, Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development, University of Oxford

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina is a Senior Researcher and Content Lead atOur World In Data, as well as Head of Operations and Executive Co-Director ofGlobal Change Data Lab. His academic work focuses on economic development, the public sector, education, and a wide range of related topics.

Previous Trustees

Supporters

Global Change Data Lab is supported by donations from several thousand readers of the web publicationOur World in Data, as well as grants from theQuadrature Climate Foundation and theBill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In the past we have also received support from theWorld Health Organization, theDepartment of Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom, and many other generous individuals and organizations that have made contributions to our work.

You find our accounts and a full description of how we are funded in ourAnnual Report; and you can read the list of donors and supporters onOur World in Data’sFunding Page.

Donations from readers and users of our products are essential to our work, providing us with the stability and independence we need. If you want to support our work, you can donate directly using any of the available optionshere (or you can send us an email todonate@ourworldindata.org).

Oxford Partnership

Our projectOur World in Data is the result of a collaboration between researchers of the​Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development​ at the University of Oxford, who are scientific contributors of website content; and our team atGlobal Change Data Lab, who curate, prepare, publish and maintain the websiteourworldindata.org and all the underlying resources and data tools.

Our approach is to combine academic expertise with state-of-the-art software development, to communicate the research and data we need to tackle the world’s largest problems.

Read more about the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development