New Online/Interactive Data Tool: “How Much Do Countries Invest In R&D?”

The following online tool was recently made available by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).
From the UIS Web Site:

As the UN General Assembly prepares to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UNESCO Institute for Statistics has released a new data tool showing the leaders and emerging players in research and development (R&D) across the world.  
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The tool offers a global perspective on spending patterns, as well as time series data on regional and country-level commitments to R&D, in absolute terms and relative to GDP.
According to the data, the top five R&D performers in absolute terms (R&D expenditure) are all large economies: the United States, followed by China, Japan, Germany and the Republic of Korea. The ranking changes dramatically when viewed according to the indicator that will be used to monitor SDG 9 (R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP): the Republic of Korea is the world leader followed by Israel, Japan, Finland and Sweden.

More From UNESCO:

In Central and Eastern Europe, Slovenia leads with 2.4% compared to the Russian Federation at 1.2%. In Central Asia, the figure hovers around 0.2%, as in the case for Kazakhstan. Morocco tops the league in the Arab States with just 0.7%. Brazil is the leader in Latin America, with 1.2%, while India leads in South and West Asia with 0.8%. In Africa, the African Union is aiming for 1%, but only Kenya, Mali and South Africa approach the target.

China is achieving an astonishing average annual growth rate of 18.3% in R&D spending, compared to just 1.4% across the rest of the world’s upper-middle-income countries, according to UIS data. China’s R&D spending only amounts to 2% of its GDP, but this means that the country is pouring about PPP$369 billion into this sector each year. As the share of global R&D expenditure by high-income countries fell from 88% in 1996 to 69.3% by 2013, China alone filled that gap, increasing its share from 2.5% to 19.6%. This means that China is increasingly approaching the United States, which accounts for almost 30% of global R&D expenditure.
Globally, there were almost 1,083 researchers for every one million people in 2013. However, the share of researchers in middle-income countries, excluding China, fell from 17% to 15% between 1996 and 2013– a worrying downward trend with global implications for sustainable development.

Direct to New Interactive Resource: How Much Does Your Country Invest in R&D?
Additional Resources
 

• UNESCO eAtlas on Research and Development
• Learn About How the UIS Mesures R&D
• Explore Data on Women in Science

Filed under: Data Files, News