UK behind leading European competitors in R&D spending

Kaveh Pourvand, 15 March 2013

The Office for National Statistics released the above graph yesterday. Note that it takes time to compile and release R&D data so the release yesterday pertains to 2011 with the 2012 figures to be released in the future. The graph more or less speaks for itself. The UK is underperforming in the highly important measure of R&D as proportion of GDP compared to our leading European competitors. Top European economies such as Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are on the top of the list while the UK’s R&D expenditure, at 1.79% of GDP, falls below the EU average of 2.03%. We are much closer to under-performing European economies such as Spain and Italy than the leading players. This is a key issue that has recieved relatively little coverage recently. Hopefully George Osborne has seen this graph and has thought about its significance when compiling the upcoming budget.

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