In 2013, total expenditure on research and development amounted to €64.2 million, or 0.86 per cent of GDP, the National Statistics Office said today.

This figure was an increase of €2.5 million, the equivalent to 4.0 per cent from 2012. The Business Enterprise sector contributed 55.6 per cent to total R&D, whereas the Higher Education and Government sectors contributed 35.6 and 8.8 per cent respectively.

The added R&D expenditure was triggered by higher outlays on recurrent expenditure of €1.8 million, mainly as a result of higher labour costs in the Business Enterprise and Higher Education sectors.

Moreover, higher outlays were recorded for capital expenditure in the Government and Higher Education sectors. Labour costs represented 57.2 per cent of total expenditure, whereas other recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure had a share of 21.0 per cent and 21.8 per cent respectively.

In 2013, the highest rate of R&D activity was recorded in Engineering and Technology which accounted for 29.6 per cent of total expenditure, followed by Natural sciences (26.4 per cent) and Medical sciences (22.4 per cent).

Year-on-year comparisons show that the highest increases were registered in Natural and Social sciences by €3.8 million and €1.3 million respectively. Conversely, Medical sciences went down by €2.8 million.

The majority of R&D activity in Engineering and Technology and Natural sciences was undertaken in business enterprises whereas research in relation to Medical and Social sciences was mainly carried out by the Higher Education sector.

Each sector mostly funds its own research, supplemented by foreign funds, mainly foreign business enterprise funds for the Business Enterprise sector, general university funds for the Higher Education sector and EU funds for the Government sector. Foreign funds for R&D reached €13.8 million, or 21.4 per cent of total funds.

In 2013, 2,293 employees were engaged in R&D work, of whom 1,326 dedicated part of their time to R&D. The highest R&D employment rate was registered in the Higher Education sector, at 1,160 employees, followed by the Business Enterprise sector, with 1,085 employees. Male employment was predominant among researchers and technicians.

As regards employment by major field of science, in 2013 the highest employment activity in R&D was recorded in Engineering and Technology with 658 employees, followed by Natural sciences and Social sciences, with 643 and 380 employees respectively.

In 2014, the highest outlays on the Government Budget Appropriations or Outlays for R&D (GBAORD) were recorded in the socio-economic activities related to Health (€4.3 million), Culture, recreation, religion and media, (€3.8 million) and Industrial production and technology (€3.7 million).

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