We are in a race against time for smarter development. Are we using science to build the future we want? This is the question asked by the latest UNESCO Science Report, released on 11 June 2021. The UNESCO Science Report monitors trends in science governance worldwide to identify which development path countries are following. The seventh edition in the series explores how countries are using science to realize a digitally and ecologically smart future. Major headlines of the 2021 report are:

• Development priorities across countries have aligned over the past five years.  Countries of all income levels are prioritizing their transition to digital and green economies.
• More scientific collaboration is happening but there is uneven research spending.  More than 30 countries raised their research spending between 2014 and 2018. Despite this, many countries remain dependent on foreign technologies and expertise.
• Sustainability topics still represent a small share of global research. While there has been a global surge in research spending and an alignment of development priorities, an analysis by UNESCO of 56 research topics found that sustainability research was not yet mainstream in academic publishing at the global level. On the contrary, some of the fastest growth in scientific publishing is occurring in artificial intelligence and robotics, including in developing countries.
• Women are still a minority in fields driving the digital revolution. Women remain a minority in digital information technology, computing, physics, mathematics and engineering which are the fields that are driving the digital revolution and so, many of the jobs of tomorrow.