News archive - Eurostat: EU R&D Spending Again Unchanged in 2007
According to the EU's Lisbon Strategy, the Union aims to approach 3 percent of GDP for research. However, since the 3% goal was set in 2002, progress has remained too slow. A recent Eurostat survey shows that public spending on research remained unachanged in 2007...
In 2007, the EU spent EUR 229 billion on research and development (R&D), equivalent to 1.85% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to newly-released figures from Eurostat. Spending has remained stable at around 1.85% of GDP over the past few years.
For comparison, the US spent 2.67% of GDP on R&D in 2007, and in 2006 (the latest year for which data are available), Japan spent 3.40%.
In 2007, just 2 countries spent over 3% of GDP on R&D: Sweden and Finland spent 3.60% and 3.47%, respectively, although even these nations spent less than they had in 2005. A further four countries (Denmark, Germany, France and Austria) spent over 2% of GDP on R&D in 2007.
The countries that have increased their R&D spending the most since 2001 are Austria (which increased its spending from 2.07% in 2001 to 2.56% in 2007), Estonia (0.71% to 1.14%) and Portugal (0.80% to 1.18%). However, 10 EU Member States still spend less than 1% of GDP on research; Bulgaria, Cyprus and Slovakia all spent less than 0.5%.
On the employment front, some 2.3 million people (full-time equivalent) were involved in R&D work in the EU in 2007. In addition to researchers, this figure includes research managers, administrators and clerical staff. These R&D personnel made up 1.6% of the EU's workforce.
Immense differences between Member States
As with R&D spending, there are immense differences between the Member States. In Finland, R&D personnel account for 3.2% of total employment. R&D personnel make up over 2% of employment in Denmark, Luxembourg, Austria and Sweden. In contrast, they account for less than 1% of employment in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Poland, Portugal and Romania.
Businesses have an important role to play in supporting R&D. The Eurostat figures reveal that between 2004 and 2006, 39% of companies with more than 10 employees were involved in some kind of innovation activity. Germany turned out to have the highest proportion of innovative companies (63%), followed by Belgium (52%), Austria and Finland (both 51%) and Luxembourg (49%).
Source: CORDIS website, as accessed on October 7, 2009.
- International; Other
Entry created by Katarina Rohsmann on October 7, 2009
Modified on October 7, 2009
