UK government to set higher R&D funding target

Minister deems 2.4 per cent GDP target already surpassed after billions added to official statistics

The UK government is to set a new target for R&D spending as a proportion of GDP, according to science minister George Freeman, who claimed that the previous target of 2.4 per cent had been reached—and even surpassed.

His comments follow the Office for National Statistics’ recent revised estimates of the UK’s business spending on R&D, which suggested that spending was about £16 billion a year higher than previously thought.