EU R&D investment unchanged
Investment in research and development (R&D) in Europe would appear to be stagnant, according to preliminary figures from Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities. Although growing by 1.5% since 2001, R&D expenditure in the EU27 in 2005 stood at 1.84% of GDP - the same as in 2004. The preliminary results raise doubts as to whether the EU as a whole will be able to reach the Barcelona objective of investing 3% of GDP in research by 2010. The unchanged figure also begs the question as to whether the EU can remain competitive against other world economies such as the US and Japan, where R&D accounted for 2.68% and 3.18% of GDP respectively in 2005. Emerging economies are also catching up; China reported spending 1.34% of its GDP on R&D in 2005. However, some individual Member States are showing that where there is a will, there is a way. In 2005, the top R&D performers remained Sweden and Finland, spending 3.86% and 3.48% of their GDP on R&D respectively - well over the 3% target. They were followed closely by Germany, Denmark, Austria, and France, which all reported R&D intensities above and beyond the 2% mark. R&D expenditure was at its lowest in new Member States such as Romania, Cyprus, and Bulgaria. But some of the newer EU family members also showed impressive annual R&D growth rates in real terms, ranging from +18% in Latvia to 11% in Lithuania The Barcelona target stipulates that two thirds of R&D investment should come from the private sector. Among the Member States, Luxembourg scored the highest with 80% of R&D investment coming from business, followed by Finland, Germany and Sweden with well over 60% each. Overall, the business sector finances the 55% of all R&D in the EU27, followed by the governmental sector at 35% and funding from abroad at 8%.