Denmark’s research and innovation system is generally regarded as successful in attracting investments from industry. The country is one of the few to have already reached the EU’s Barcelona target—spending 3 per cent of GDP on R&D—before the deadline in 2020.
Even more impressively, in 2009 more than two-thirds of Denmark’s total R&D expenditure was provided by industry and independent organisations.
But a report on R&D in Denmark, published this month, contains bad news for research minister Morten Østergaard. It found that the country’s public spending on R&D is at an all-time high—but industry spending has been stagnant since 2009.
The report, published by Statistics Denmark, shows that industry spending on R&D fell slightly, from 2.2 per cent of GDP in 2009 to 1.96 per cent in 2011. It amounted to 35 billion Danish kroner (€4.7bn) in 2011, compared with kr35.6bn in 2010 and kr38.5bn in 2009.
As a result, in 2011 the country failed for the first time to reach another EU target, which says that non-public sources should make up 2 per cent of GDP allocated to R&D.
Claus Beck-Tange, special adviser at the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, says that the full causes of the decline are not entirely clear, but that the economic crisis is likely to have played a part.
The statistics fly in the face of the government’s ambitious Innovation and Strategy plan, published in December. In the plan, the government stated its aim to get more R&D funding from industry to push Denmark into the OECD’s top five R&D spenders by 2020.
Østergaard has said he firmly believes in the innovation strategy, but that he acknowledges the setback. “It is an objective of our innovation strategy to be on top not only in public spending, but in private spending too,” he said, adding that “this obviously requires a new and more direct link between private and public funds”.
There are, however, signs that the situation could change. Public spending on research increased from 0.87 per cent in 2008 to 1.02 per cent in 2011. In February, business leaders called for a further increase, to 1.5 per cent, to support the research base in industry. In time, industry might return the favour.