EU countries in 2019 spent more than €306 billion on R&D, almost the same as the year before.
Expressed as a percentage of GDP, expenditure on R&D in 2019 was 2.19% and was almost unchanged compared to the year before. Ten years ago, it was 1.97%.
The business sector invested the most in R&D in 2019, with a share in total expenditure of 66%. It was followed by the sector of higher education, with 22%, and the state, with a share of 11%.
Sweden tops ranking
Sweden spent the most on R&D in 2019, 3.39% of GDP.
It was followed by Austria and Germany, with 3.19% and 3.17% respectively. Denmark and Belgium invested close to 3% of their GDP in R&D.
France's investment in R&D was at the level of the EU average, and the Netherlands and Slovenia were close as well, with 2.16% and 2.04% respectively.
With R&D outlays of 1.11% of GDP Croatia was in the same group as Luxembourg and Spain, which spent 1.19% and 1.14% of their GDP respectively on R&D.
In 2018 expenditure on R&D in Croatia was 0.97% of GDP.
Romania had the lowest rate, of 0.48% of GDP.
Modest growth
Over a ten-year period ending in 2019, expenditure on R&D, expressed as a percentage of GDP, grew in 19 EU member-countries, and it grew the most in Belgium, by 0.89 percentage points.
Poland and the Czech Republic followed, with increases of 0.66 and 0.65 percentage points respectively.
Croatia's R&D expenditure in 2019 was 0.27 pp higher than in 2009.
In the said period, R&D expenditure dropped the most in Finland, by 0.94 pp and Ireland, by 0.83 pp.
In France and Sweden it was the same as in 2009.