R&D spending sees steady decline

Public and private spending in R&D has been falling since 2010 in Finland, a report has found.

Government spending on R&D decreased from 1.1 per cent of GDP in 2010, to 0.96 per cent in 2015, according to a report published by the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s in-house science service, on 25 May. Public R&D spending is estimated to fall further to 0.87 per cent in 2016. However, the report added that it would still remain above the EU average of 0.67 in 2014.

At the same time, there has been a decline in the industry’s share of R&D spending; it fell from 74 per cent in 2008, to 67 per cent in 2015. This is mostly due to a “severe drop” in R&D spending in the manufacturing and ICT industries, the report said.