(17 November 2014) – In 2013, the EU28 Member States spent almost €275 billion on Research & Development (R&D). The R&D intensity, i.e. R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP, stood at 2.02% in the EU28 in 2013, compared with 1.76% in 2004.
This level remained however lower 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.
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%).