Relation of expenditure on Research and Development to GDP in EU countries (2009-2012)

The presented dataset shows that most countries increased their R&D spending - 16 of those 26 members of the European Union for which Eurostat has complete data did so. This also translated into the average ratio for the entire Community, in 2012 it amounted to 2.06% of GDP compared to 2.01% in 2009. The most severely limited their expenses were the leaders of the 2009 ranking, including Finland, Sweden and Denmark. Despite this, they kept their places and, more importantly, maintained the ideal, according to the "Strategy 2020" ratio of R&D expenditure to GDP (it is 3% and more). How important an element of innovation policy is the R&D sector can be seen by comparing the leaders of the above list with those of the "Summary Innovation Index" presented in the previous chapter. In two rankings, the same countries are in the top four. As for Poland, it increased R&D spending from 0.67% of GDP to 0.90% of GDP. This puts seven countries ahead of them.