December 2 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria and Romania were among six EU member states which set aside less than 1% of their gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 to support domestic investment in research and development (R&D), the European statistical office said.
Romania emerged last in the 27-member bloc with 0.48% of GDP spent on R&D last year, while Bulgaria dedicated only 0.81% of its GDP, with Malta, Latvia, Cyprus and Slovakia rounding off the list of six, Eurostat said in a report earlier this week, citing preliminary data.
Among EU member states in Southeast Europe (SEE), Slovenia posted the highest R&D investment intensity, or expenditure on research and innovation as a percentage of GDP, of some 2.2%.
R&D intensity was 2.3% in the EU as a whole, totalling 328 billion euro ($345.3 billion) in current prices. This represented an annual increase of 6% and was up 43.9% compared to 2011.
At the other end of the spectrum, Sweden recorded the highest proportion of GDP allocated to R&D, or 3.35%, followed by Austria - 3.22%, and Belgium with 3.19%.
Five EU member states showed the highest increase in R&D spending intensity in the ten years to 2021, including Greece with a rise of 0.76 percentage points (pp) and Croatia - 0.53 pp. Overall, two-thirds of member states lifted their levels of R&D expenditure over the decade under review.
Looking at expenditure by sector, the business sector accounted for the largest share, 66.08% of total R&D funds disbursed in the EU in 2021, followed by higher education sector - 21.58%, and the government sector with 11.89%.
($ = 0.949971 euro)