In 2023, the European Union allocated EUR381.4 billion for research and development (R&D), marking a 6.7 percent increase from the previous year’s EUR357.4 billion and a significant rise of 57.9 percent compared to EUR241.5 billion in 2013.
The R&D intensity, defined as the proportion of R&D expenditure relative to GDP, remained steady at 2.2 percent, the same as in 2022. Over the period from 2013 to 2023, R&D intensity in the EU saw a modest increase of 0.1 percentage points.
During this decade, research and development intensity grew in 19 EU nations, with the most notable increases observed in Belgium (1.0 percentage points), Poland (0.7 percentage points), and Greece (0.7 percentage points), Eurostat reported.
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In 2023, five EU countries achieved an R&D intensity exceeding 3 percent. Sweden led the pack with the highest intensity at 3.6 percent, followed closely by Belgium and Austria, each at 3.3 percent. Germany and Finland each recorded an intensity of 3.1 percent.
Moreover, five EU countries reported R&D intensity levels below 1 percent: Romania at 0.5 percent, Malta at 0.6 percent, Cyprus at 0.7 percent, and both Bulgaria and Latvia at 0.8 percent.
Furthermore, the business enterprise sector continued to dominate research and development expenditures, accounting for the largest share in 2023 at 66 percent of the total EU R&D spending, which amounted to EUR253.1 billion. This was followed by the higher education sector at EUR81.7 billion (21 percent), the government sector at EUR41.0 billion (11 percent), and the private non-profit sector at EUR5.5 billion (1 percent).
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