R&D expenditure rise lags behind economic growth

Research and innovation spending by the Dutch government is not growing as fast as the economy, a study has shown.

Companies have been slow to increase their R&D expenditure, so total R&D spending relative to GDP is falling, according to a report on science and innovation in the period 2017-2023, published by the Rathenau Institute, which researches the societal aspects of science, innovation and new technologies.

"For the first time, we have been able to include the increase in R&D expenditure decided by the government when it took office at the end of 2017,” says Jos de Jonge, responsible for the R&D figures at the institute.