In 2012, total expenditure on Research and Development (R&D) amounted to €62.4 million, or 0.91 per cent of GDP.
The figures released by the National Statistics Office today show that during 2012, total expenditure on R&D activities amounted to €62.4 million, an increase of €14.2 million or 29.4 per cent from 2011. The Business Enterprise sector contributed 58.0 per cent to total R&D, whereas the Higher Education and Government sectors contributed 33.4 per cent and 8.6 per cent respectively.
The increase in R&D expenditure was the result of higher outlays on capital expenditure of €9.7 million, mainly investments in R&D facilities, including the Life Sciences Centre, classified within the Government sector. Labour costs represented 51.8 per cent of total expenditure, whereas other recurrent expenditure and capital projects had a share of 26.8 per cent and 21.4 per cent respectively.
In 2012, the highest rate of R&D activity was recorded in Engineering and Technology, which accounted for 29.1 per cent of total expenditure, followed by Medical Sciences (27.6 per cent) and Natural Sciences (21.0 per cent).
Year-on-year comparisons show that all fields of sciences registered higher R&D expenditure, the major increases being recorded in Medical and Natural Sciences by €6.7 million and €2.8 million respectively.
Most R&D activity in Engineering and Technology, Medical Sciences and Natural Sciences was undertaken in business enterprises, whereas research in relation to Social Sciences and Humanities was mainly carried out by the Higher Education sector.
Foreign funds for R&D reached €13.3 million, or 21.3 per cent of total funds.
In 2012, 2,353 employees were engaged in R&D work, of whom 1,422 dedicated part of their time to R&D. The highest R&D employment rate was registered in the Business Enterprise sector, with 1,192 employees, followed by the Higher Education sector, with 1,075 employees. Researchers and Technicians were predominantly males.
In 2012, the highest employment activity was recorded in the field of Engineering and Technology with 711 employees, followed by Natural and Social Sciences, with 549 and 345 employees respectively.
The highest outlays for the Government Budget Appropriations for R&D (GBAORD) by socio- economic objective for 2013, were recorded for R&D activities related to Health (€5.0 million), Culture, Recreation, Religion and Media (€4.3 million) and Industrial Production and Technology (€4.1 million).