UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT
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<strong>UNESCO</strong> <strong>SCIENCE</strong> <strong>REPORT</strong><br />
Table 9.2: GERD/GDP ratio in the EU28 in 2009 and 2013<br />
and targets to 2020 (%)<br />
GERD/GDP<br />
ratio, 2009<br />
* or latest available year<br />
** The national target of 2.5% of GNP is estimated as being equal to 2.0% of GDP.<br />
Source: Eurostat, January 2015<br />
GERD/GDP<br />
ratio, 2013*<br />
Target<br />
for 2020<br />
Industryinanced<br />
share<br />
of GERD, 2013*<br />
EU28 1.94 2.02 3.00 54.9<br />
Austria 2.61 2.81 3.76 44.1<br />
Belgium 1.97 2.28 3.00 60.2<br />
Bulgaria 0.51 0.65 1.50 19.4<br />
Croatia 0.84 0.81 1.40 42.8<br />
Cyprus 0.45 0.48 0.50 10.9<br />
Czech Rep. 1.30 1.91 – 37.6<br />
Denmark 3.07 3.05 3.00 59.8<br />
Estonia 1.40 1.74 3.00 41.3<br />
Finland 3.75 3.32 4.00 60.8<br />
France 2.21 2.23 3.00 55.4<br />
Germany 2.73 2.94 3.00 66.1<br />
Greece 0.63 0.78 0.67 32.1<br />
Hungary 1.14 1.41 1.80 46.8<br />
Ireland 1.39 1.58 2.00** 50.3<br />
Italy 1.22 1.25 1.53 44.3<br />
Latvia 0.45 0.60 1.50 21.8<br />
Lithuania 0.83 0.95 1.90 27.4<br />
Luxembourg 1.72 1.16 2.30–2.60 47.8<br />
Malta 0.52 0.85 0.67 44.3<br />
Netherlands 1.69 1.98 2.50 47.1<br />
Poland 0.67 0.87 1.70 37.3<br />
Portugal 1.58 1.36 3.00 46.0<br />
Romania 0.46 0.39 2.00 31.0<br />
Slovakia 0.47 0.83 1.20 40.2<br />
Slovenia 1.82 2.59 3.00 63.8<br />
Spain 1.35 1.24 2.00 45.6<br />
Sweden 3.42 3.21 4.00 57.3<br />
UK 1.75 1.63 – 46.5<br />
Less high-tech R&D than Japan and the USA<br />
The Lisbon Strategy fixed the target of having business<br />
contribute two-thirds of GERD (2% of GDP) by 2010. This<br />
target has not been reached either, although the business<br />
sector funds more than half of R&D (55%), on average<br />
(Figure 9.3). Business is currently the largest source of R&D<br />
funding in 20 member states, with shares of 60% or more of<br />
GERD in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Slovenia.<br />
The general pattern in the EU is that the business sector<br />
spends more money on performing research than it does on<br />
financing it. This is the case in all but Lithuania and Romania.<br />
Interestingly, funding from abroad is the most important<br />
source for Lithuania, as also for Bulgaria and Latvia. As a<br />
group, the first 15 members of the EU lag behind many<br />
advanced economies when it comes to the intensity of<br />
business R&D (Figure 9.4). This largely reflects the economic<br />
structures of some of the larger member states such as Italy,<br />
Spain and the UK that are less focused than other economies<br />
on technology-intensive industries.<br />
Company-level R&D intensity (as a share of net sales) tends to<br />
be strongly correlated with the productive sector. The EU R&D<br />
Scoreboard shows that EU businesses tend to be more heavily<br />
concentrated in R&D of medium-to-low and low intensity,<br />
in comparison to their principal competitors, the other two<br />
members of the Triad, the USA and Japan (Table 9.3 and<br />
Figure 9.5).<br />
Moreover, although EU-based companies accounted for<br />
30.1% of total R&D spending by the world’s top 2 500<br />
companies, there are only two EU-based companies in the<br />
top ten, both of them German and both in the automotive<br />
sector (Table 9.3). Indeed, the top three R&D performers in<br />
the EU are the German automotive companies Volkswagen,<br />
Daimler and BMW (Tables 9.3 and 9.4). The automotive sector<br />
represents one-quarter of R&D spending by EU companies<br />
covered in the EU R&D Scoreboard, three-quarters of which is<br />
accounted for by German automotive companies.<br />
The EU is largely absent from the arena of internet-based<br />
companies active in new and emerging forms of innovation.<br />
According to Downes (2015), none of the 15 largest public<br />
internet companies today are European. Eleven are US-based<br />
and the remainder are Chinese. Indeed, the EU’s attempts<br />
to replicate a Silicon Valley-type experience 10 have not lived<br />
up to expectations. The principal EU giants specializing in<br />
hardware within the digital economy (Siemens, Ericsson,<br />
Nokia) have even lost a lot of ground in the past decade<br />
in global R&D rankings. Nonetheless, the German-based<br />
software and IT services company SAP has recently joined the<br />
global top 50 R&D performers (Table 9.3).<br />
Business R&D performance in the EU has also been weighed<br />
down by the disappointing growth of R&D in sectors such as<br />
pharmaceuticals and biotechnology (0.9 % R&D growth in<br />
2013) or technology hardware and equipment (-5.4%), which<br />
are typically R&D-intensive. Whereas the EU is almost on a par<br />
with the USA in pharmaceuticals, it trails the USA in the area<br />
of biotechnology (Tables 9.5 and 9.6).<br />
There are emerging concerns in Europe about the erosion of<br />
its science base through takeover bids from competitors. One<br />
illustration of this concern is the aborted takeover bid by the<br />
US pharmaceutical company Pfizer in 2014. Pfizer found itself<br />
obliged to reassure the UK government that its £ 63 billion<br />
bid to buy the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company<br />
AstraZeneca would not affect research jobs in the UK.<br />
Although Pfizer promised that a combined company would<br />
10. One example is the technology cluster in central and east London known as<br />
Tech City. See: www.techcityuk.com<br />
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