Analytics, Education and Science, EU – Baltic States, Technology
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Thursday, 28.03.2024, 22:41
EU28 member-states spent almost EUR 275 bln on R&D in 2013
In 2013, Lithuania's R&D expenditure accounted for 0.95% of GDP (in 2014 – 0.75%), Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, reports.
In 2013, the EU28 member-states spent almost EUR 275 billion on R&D. The R&D intensity, i.e. R&D expenditure as a%age of GDP, stood at 2.02% in the EU28 in 2013, compared with 1.76% in 2004. This level remained however lower in the EU28 than in other major economies. R&D intensity was much higher in South Korea (4.04% in 2011) and Japan (3.38% in 2011) as well as, to a lesser extent, in the United States (2.81% in 2012), while in both China (1.98% in 2012) and Russia (1.11%) the R&D intensity was below that of the EU28. In order to provide a stimulus to the EU's competitiveness, an increase of the R&D intensity in the EU28 is one of the five headline targets of the Europe 2020 strategy.
The business enterprise sector continued to be the main sector in which R&D expenditure was performed accounting for 64% of total R&D conducted in 2013, followed by the higher education sector (23%), the government sector (12%) and the private non-profit sector (1%).
In 2013, the highest R&D intensities were recorded in Finland (3.32%), Sweden (3.21%) and Denmark (3.05%), all above 3% of GDP, followed by Germany (2.94%) and Austria (2.81%). At the opposite end of the scale, ten member-states recorded an R&D intensity below 1% of GDP: Romania (0.39%), Cyprus (0.48%), Latvia (0.60%), Bulgaria (0.65%), Greece (0.78%), Croatia (0.81%), Slovakia (0.83%), Malta (0.85%), Poland (0.87%) and Lithuania (0.95%).
Compared with 2004, R&D intensity increased in twenty-two member-states, decreased in Croatia (from 1.03% in 2004 to 0.81% in 2013), Luxembourg (from 1.63% to 1.16%) and Sweden (from 3.39% to 3.21%), and remained almost stable in Romania, Finland and the United Kingdom.