European Union (EU) member countries transferred a total of 328 billion euros to research and development (R&D) expenditures last year.
The European Statistical Office (Eurostat) has published the data on the R&D expenditures of the 27 member countries of the union for 2021.
According to the data, while EU member countries spent 310 billion euros on R&D in 2020, the amount of spending increased to 328 billion euros in 2021.
Thus, R&D expenditures of European countries increased by about 6 percent last year compared to the previous year.
EU countries spent 2.27 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on R&D in 2021.
In the said period, 66.08 percent of R&D expenditures were made by the private sector, 21.58 percent by higher education institutions, 11.89 percent by public and 0.44 percent by non-profit institutions.
Among EU member states, the countries with the highest ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP in 2021 were Sweden with 3.35 percent, Austria with 3.22 percent, Belgium with 3.19 percent and Germany with 3.13 percent.
The countries with the lowest values were Romania with 0.48 percent, Malta with 0.65 percent and Latvia with 0.71 percent.
