Press Release 18/11/2022

STATISTICS ON SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT - R&D ACTIVITIES 2021

Expenditure on R&D in the Basque Country stood at 1,647 million euros in 2021, up 10.5%, reaching the highest figure in its historical series

Expenditure on R&D activities as a share of GDP rose from 2.07% in 2020 to 2.11% in 2021

Expenditure on internal R&D (Research and Technological Development) in 2021 reached a total of 1,647 million euros in the Basque Country, a record figure in R&D expenditure according to Eustat data. This figure accounted for expenditure of 157 million euros more than in the previous year, an increase of 10.5%. Expenditure on R&D activities as a share of GDP stood at 2.11% in 2021, a higher figure than that achieved in 2020, which was 2.07%.

Internal R&D provided employment for 20,804 people in Full-Time Equivalent Jobs in 2021, following a rise of 6.6% in respect of the previous year. Likewise, the number of research staff, 14,367 people in Full-Time Equivalent Jobs, also increased by 5.4%.

At provincial level, in 2021, 46.9% of total expenditure on internal R&D in the Basque Country was carried out in Bizkaia, 42.7% in Gipuzkoa and 10.5% in Álava. In relation to the GDP of each province, it should be pointed out that this expenditure represented 2.69% of GDP in Gipuzkoa, 1.95% in Bizkaia and 1.40% in Álava.

77.4% of expenditure on internal R&D in the Basque Country was implemented by the business sector

In terms of the sector that carried out internal R&D expenditure, the majority, 77.4% (1,275.2 million euros) was implemented by Businesses, whereas 16.2% (267.1 million) corresponded to Higher Education and the remaining 6.4% (104.7 million) was carried out by various Bodies dependent on the Administration. In relation to 2020, Businesses increased their R&D expenditure by 11.6%, Bodies dependent on the Administration by 18.6% and Higher Education by 3.2%.

The sectorial distribution of implementation of R&D expenditure has remained relatively stable in recent years. Compared to the previous year, two of the three sectors, Businesses and Public Administration, posted an increase in their share of total expenditure on internal R&D of 0.7 and 0.4 percentage points, respectively, while that of Higher Education fell by 1.1 percentage points.

In terms of funding internal R&D expenditure, Businesses spent 933 million euros on research, 14.8% more than in 2020, which accounted for 56.7% of total funding, raising their share of total funding by 2.1 percentage points more with regard to the previous year and maintaining their position as the primary source of funding. Public funding contributed 541 million, following an increase of 6.2% compared to the previous year, and represented 32.9% of total expenditure on internal R&D, which, despite the sharp rise, decreased its share by 1.3 percentage points.

The remaining funding sources were the Higher Education sector, 34.2 million; Private Non-Profit Institutions, 7.5 million; and Overseas, 130.9 million. These contributions led to variations in respect of the previous year’s figures of 0.8%, -2.6% and 4.0%, respectively.

As regards the origin of public funding, the contribution from the Autonomous Administration predominated (433.4 million), up 5.3% on the previous year, representing 80.1% of total funding by the public administration in 2021. For its part, the Central Administration (87.3 million) increased its funding by 16.9% in 2021, bringing its share to 16.1% of total funding by the Public Administrations. Finally, the provincial and local administrations’ share (20.6 million) stood at 3.8%, although they reduced their contribution in relation to the previous year, down 11.6%.

There were 20,804 people in full-time employment who corresponded to the following implementation sectors: 14,887 people were employed in the Business Sector (71.6% of the total), 4,622 in Higher Education (22.2%) and 1,295 in Public Administration (6.2%). As regards their professional category, research staff accounted for 14,367 people, up 5.4%; the number of technical staff rose to 4,972 people, having increased by 9.6%; and, lastly, there were 1,466 people employed as auxiliary staff, 8.9% more than the year before.

36.2% of R&D personnel were women in 2021

In 2021, 36.2% of all R&D personnel in full-time employment were women. This represents an increase of 5.7% in relation to the number of women working in R&D in 2020, bringing the total to 7,534 women. Although it is true that their weight in the total number of personnel fell by three tenths of a point, from a more long-term perspective, their weight increased by 3.1 percentage points in relation to 2010 and as much as 4.8 points compared to 2005.

Considering the sector implementing R&D, it can be observed that there were higher numbers of women in the Business and Higher Education sectors: 4,531 and 2,260 women, respectively, compared to 743 women in the Public Administration sector. However, in relative terms, in the Public Administration women represented 57.3% of all staff, compared to 48.9% in Higher Education and 30.4% in the Business sector.

Note: Eustat would like to thank all the companies and institutions that have collaborated in preparing this survey, the information for which was gathered between April and October 2022, for the effort made. Without their collaboration it would not have been possible.

For further information:

Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Press service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel.: 945 01 75 62