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R&D EXPENDITURE/
EUROPE
source: European Commission, “Key Figures 2003-2004. Towards a European Research Area Science, Technology and Innovation”, Directorate-General for Research, Brussels 2003. [ www.cordis.lu/indicators]
European Commission, “She Figures 2003- Women and Science Statistics and Indicators”, Directorate-General for Research, Brussels 2003. [ europa.eu.int/comm/research/
science-society/pdf/she_figures
_2003.pdf ]
nextwave.sciencemag.org/cgi/
content/full/2003/01/23/5
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The European Union produces almost 1/3 of the world's scientific knowledge…- The total EU expenditure on R&D in 2002 is estimated at 1.99% of GDP, up from 1.98% in 2001 and a further increase compared to 1.95% in 2000. However, the gap with regard to R&D expenditure in Japan (2.98% in 2000) and the United States (2.80%) remained significant. The EU has until 2010 to meet the target of 3% that it set itself at the Barcelona Council in 2002;
- according to the latest data available, the Member States with the highest R&D intensity were Sweden (4.27% of GDP devoted to R&D expenditure in 2001) and Finland (3.49% in 2002). The other Member States with R&D intensity rates above the EU average were Germany (2.49% in 2001), Denmark (2.40% in 2001), France (2.20% in 2002) and Belgium (2.17% in 2001). The lowest intensities were found in Greece (0.67% in 2000), Portugal (0.84% in 2001) and Spain (0.96% in 2001).
- nearly 2/3 of the EU's total investments in R&D come from 3 countries: in 2003, Germany spent 52 billion euro in 2001, France* (33 bn) and UK (30 bn);
- even though countries such as Finland, which increased its R&D investments from 3.40% of GDP in 2001 to 3.49% in 2002, continue to make progress, those countries that account for the largest proportion of research expenditure in Europe have not done so well;
- the overall proportion of R&D spending in the new Member States stood at just 0.84% in 2001 (in the range of 0.3-1.0%). Slovenia and the Czech Republic displayed the highest intensity of R&D expenditure, investing 1.52% and 1.33% of GDP respectively. The lowest level was observed in Cyprus, where research spending languishes at 0.26% of overall income. More than 80% of the 3.4 billion euro of R&D expenditure in absolute terms in the Acceding Countries was carried out in Poland (1.3 bn), the Czech Republic (0.8 bn) and Hungary (0.5 bn);
- the EU is less successful at converting its achievements into commercial technologies. One of the tasks of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6 in EU jargon) is to bridge the gap between research work and its downstream commercial applications;
- FP6 runs from 2002 to 2006 and has a budget of €17.5 billion (around US$21.2 billion) over the full period — a 17 % increase on its predecessor; its main objective is to contribute to the creation of the European Research Area (ERA) by improving integration and co-ordination of research in Europe which is so far largely fragmented;
- the shares of funds from the business enterprise sector on R&D in EU: from 54,4 % in 1998 increased on 56,0% in 2001. The highest share of the business enterprise sector was in Finland (65,1 % in 2003) in Member States of EU. The share of government in EU-15 decreased from 36,2 % in 1998 to 34,1% in 2001;
- funds from abroad are the third important source of financing R&D, the average of abroad in EU-15 was 7,8 % in 2001. There are included private sources (business enterprises) and public sources (programmes of EU, other international programmes). The highest share of abroad was in Greece (21,4 % in 2001), the United Kingdom (20,5 % in 2002) and Austria (18,6 % in 2003).
- at about €153.6 billion (US$187.9 billion), the combined EU military budget is less that half that of the US.
More attention has to be paid not just to R&D but also to human resources in S&T. To increase the supply of human resources for S&T, more women need to be recruited into S&T professions…- in setting an R&D expenditure target of 3% of GDP by 2010 at the 2002 Barcelona Council, European governments made their ambition clear. If this goal is to be met, Europe will need at least an extra 700,000 researchers;
- despite producing more PhDs per head of population than its chief competitors, the United States and Japan, Europe employs fewer researchers than either of these countries. When it comes to employment, the EU average is 5.9 researchers per thousand employees in the labour force. In the US, the equivalent figure is 8.6, while for Japan its 10.2. No one can beat Finland, however, where the number of researchers is a staggering 13.08 per thousand, leaving the rest of the world standing;
- in EU-15, about 972,500 researchers were employed in the year 2000. This number has shown an average annual growth rate of 3.9% since 1996. In the enlarged EU with 25 Member States, the number will be 110 000 higher, but still about 175 000 lower than the US. Japan is on a similar level to Germany, France, the UK and Spain grouped together. Poland is the largest employer among the new Member States; the other Acceding countries each employ between 300 and 15 000 researchers;
- whereas in EU-15 about 50% of researchers are employed by the private sector and in EU-25 even less, this share increases to about 64% for Japan and about 80% for the US. In Europe, only Ireland has a similar share to Japan, and only Austria, Sweden and Switzerland are above 60%. The higher education sector is the most important employer for researchers in Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Turkey;
- in almost every country researcher employment is growing, and while Finland is again close to the top of the league, with an average annual growth of 10.8% since 1995, the Finns are pipped to the post for this trophy, with Greece showing an annual growth of 11%. Things are looking grim in Italy, however, the only country to show a decrease, of 0.6%;
- women are widely recognised as being an important resource for European research, and their huge potential is under-exploited. This under-representation of women in research results from different factors such as lower participation in S&E related studies, different career models, and historical and current discriminations. This is shown in the share of women in the total of researchers, which in nearly all countries was below 50% in 2001: only Latvia had a share of more than 50%. Estonia, Lithuania, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece were all above 40%;
- the EU-15 average was below 1/3, which compares to 36% in the Acceding Countries. Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Slovakia had shares less than 25%. They are nevertheless above Japan, which shows a share of only 11.2%.
- women remain in the minority in public research (34% in 2001, a slight increase from 32% in 1999), but their annual growth rate is 8% compared to that of 3.1% for men. This represents an increase of some 50,000 researchers in this sector in the period, of which just over half were women.
Female researchers as % of all researchers (in HC), 2001 (1) | country | % | country | % | | Latvia | 52.7 | Cyprus | 29.3 | | Lithuania | 47.0 | Finland | 29.1 | | Portugal | 46.6 | Norway | 28.3 | | Bulgaria | 45.5 | Denmark | 28.0 | | Estonia | 43.3 | Italy | 27.9 | | Romania | 42.8 | France | 27.5 | | Greece | 40.9 | EU-15 (2) | 27.2 | | Poland | 38.1 | Czech Rep. | 26.8 | | Slovenia | 36.8 | Slovakia | 24.0 | | Acc. countr. (3) | 35.5 | Switzerland | 21.2 | | Spain | 35.4 | Austria | 18.8 | | Iceland | 34.6 | Germany | 15.5 | | Hungary | 33.0 | Japan | 10.2 | | Ireland | 29.4 |
Source: DG Research Key Figures 2003-2004. Data: Benchmarking indicator, Eurostat/Member States, “She Figures”
Notes: Data are in headcount (HC) (1) or latest available year: IS: 2002, DE, FR, IE, IT, PL, CH: 2000, EL, PT: 1999; AT: 1998; (2) EU-15 average only includes data for available countries. (3) ACC data do not include MT.
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