Snapshot shows small growth in R&D spend in 2010

France’s national R&D spending totalled €44.6 billion in 2010, an increase of 1.7 per cent on the previous year, figures published on 31 August show. The snapshot of education and research provides figures on spending in 2010, the most recent year for which the information is available. They show that the growth was largely due to an increase in private sector investments, which accounts for 63 per cent of the overall spend.

R&D spending still only accounted for just 2.2 per cent of GDP in 2010, despite Europe-wide efforts to increase it to 3 per cent in all member states.