Portugal is the 13th EU country with the highest percentage of public spending on R&D – O Jornal Económico
Portugal invested 1.6% of its GDP in research and development (R&D), a figure that is below the average of 2.3% registered in the European Union. This Monday’s Eurostat data shows that Member States spent an average of 311 million euros on this item in 2020, which means that, compared to the previous year, overall expenditure on R&D has fallen in absolute terms, but grew as a function of GDP, due to a drop in this second.
Eurostat’s information note adds that the private sector remains the main investor in R&D, representing 66% of expenditure for this important last year. Public spending under this heading reached only 12% of total investment, with the European academic sector occupying second place, with 22%.
Portugal is thus ranked 13th among the EU in the ranking of this indicator, which is led by Belgium and Sweden, both with 3.5% of their GDP invested in R&D. It follows Austria, with 3.2%, and Germany, with 3.1%.
On the other side of the ranking, Romania is still the Member State that allocates the smallest share of its budget to R&D, with this investment representing only 0.5% of the total expenditure by the Government of that country. It is followed by Latvia and Malta, with embassies with 0.7%, and Cyprus, Bulgaria and Slovakia, all with 0.9%.