Commission releases first R&D benchmarking figures
The European Commission has key figures from a benchmarking study carried out across the EU contrasting national figures human resources, public and private investment in R&D, scientific and technological productivity and the impact of R&D on economic competitiveness and employment. Results vary across the different indicators used, but tend to show the Nordic countries at the higher end of the scoreboard but high growth rates amongst those Member States lagging behind. In the majority of cases, the EU average is still lagging behind the USA and Japan, but there are areas where this is not the case, such as the percentage of highly cited scientific publications. Figures for four areas have so for been compiled, with five indicators being used for each theme. The areas benchmarked are the following: - development of an open method of coordination for benchmarking national research policies: objectives, methodology and indicators - public and private investment in RTD - scientific and technological productivity - impact of RTD on economic competitiveness and employment. Looking at the number of researchers in the total workforce, the EU has considerably less (with 5.3 per thousand) than Japan (9.3) and the USA (8.1). Finland, which actually has the highest percentage of researchers in its workforce and Ireland, which has a below average number, are the most dynamic countries in terms of increasing their number of researchers. Other Member States with fewer researchers also have an above average growth rate in researcher numbers. The Commission intends to use these figures to address questions such as how Finland and Sweden have achieved such a high proportion of researchers in their workforce? And what are the factors and policies behind Ireland's rapid increase in numbers of researchers? Turning to public and private investment, the study records the total R&D expenditure in relation to GDP, R&D expenditure financed by industry in relation to industrial output, share of the annual government budget allocation to research, share of SMEs in publicly funded R&D executed by the business sector and the volume of venture capital investment in the early stages in relation to GDP. Results show that whilst R&D intensity in Germany, France, Belgium and Denmark is higher than the EU average, only Belgium and Denmark experience relatively high growth rates. From the other Member States, only Portugal is in a real process of catching up, states the report. Research expenditure in Sweden, Finland, Germany and Denmark are at levels comparable with those in the USA and Japan. The Commission intends to use these statistics to investigate what type of policy instruments can be used to support the catching up process in other countries. The Commission chose to investigate the share of SMEs in publicly funded R&D executed by the business sector as 'SMEs appear to provide a fertile breeding ground for new ideas and innovative ways.' The results clearly demonstrate that the share of SMEs in publicly funded R&D executed by the business sector is considerably higher in the smaller countries. Ireland, with 83.3 percent has the highest value, followed by Greece, Portugal and Spain. Looking at scientific and technological productivity, the study assessed the number of scientific publications and the number of highly cited papers per capita. Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium and Austria are all above the EU average as well as the USA and Japan in terms of the number of scientific publications. Per capita, Sweden and Denmark have a larger number of highly cited publications than the Netherlands, UK and Belgium On the issue of cooperation, the benchmarking study shows that, on average, 25 percent of innovative EU firms cooperate with other firms, universities or public research centres, but cooperation is stronger in the Nordic countries, where figures reach 50 percent. Attempting to gain an insight into the impact of R&D on economic competitiveness and employment, the study collected data on labour productivity. Figures show that labour productivity in the USA is a little higher than in the EU and much higher than in Japan, which does however have the highest productivity growth rate, followed by the EU and then the USA. Within the EU, Luxembourg has the highest level and the second highest growth rate of labour productivity. The study was conducted following a request from the Lisbon European Council to develop benchmarking as a means of evaluating the performance of national research policies. Partnership with the Member States was ensured through the creation of a High level group (HLG), composed of representatives nominated by European Research ministers. Their task was to ensure that the best inputs from national sources were used. Four expert groups, one for each of the themes covered by the study, were also set up by the Commission.