What EU country spent the highest amount on research and development in 2023?

Sweden is the country with the highest research and development intensity – spend on R&D as a percentage of GDP – in Europe, with 3.57%, new data from Eurostat has found.

Other EU countries to boast a high R&D intensity, according to the 2023 figures, include Belgium (3.32%), Austria (3.29%), Germany (3.11%), Finland (3.09%) and Denmark (2.99%).

At the other end of the scale, countries with a low R&D intensity – in other words, those for which spend on R&D accounts for a minuscule percentage of GDP – include Romania (0.52%), Malta (0.61%), Cyprus (0.68%) and Bulgaria (0.79%).

No data was available for Ireland, and most of the percentage data is provisional, except for Finland, Estonia, Slovakia, Latvia and Malta. Data for the Netherlands is estimated.

R&D spend across Europe

Overall, the European Union spent €381.4 billion on R&D in 2023, which is 6.7% more than the previous year (€357.4 billion), and a notable 57.9% more than in 2013, Eurostat noted.

R&D intensity at a European level, meanwhile, stood at 2.2% last year, the same percentage as in 2022. Between 2013 and 2023, R&D intensity saw a 0.1 percentage point gain in the EU.

Across the bloc, business enterprise sector was the largest contributor to R&D expenditure, accounting for 66% of the total spending last year. This sector invested €253.1 billion in R&D activities. The higher education sector was the second-largest contributor, with €81.7 billion or 21% of the total expenditure, followed by the government sector (€41.0 billion) and the private non-profit sector (€5.5 billion). Read more here.

R&D intensity by EU member state, 2023 (%)

Editor

See Full Bio