Over EUR 200 million out of last year's budget for R&D

The share of public funding for R&D in GDP also went up from 0.42% to 0.46% in 2019 compared to 2018, show Statistics Office data released on Monday.

Moreover, for the fourth year in a row, R&D budget funding per capita increased from EUR 92.7 in 2018 to EUR 105.6 in 2019, exceeding EUR 100 for the first time since 2011.

Most of the R&D state funding in 2019 went for general advancement of knowledge (EUR 105 million or almost 48%), same as in previous years. What followed was industrial production and technology (some 11%), health (11%), energy (6%) and the environment (6%).

Compared to 2018, agriculture dropped out of the top five priorities regarding socio-economic targets in 2019, being replaced by energy. Agriculture was also the only socio-economic target in 2019 which saw a drop in funds, as much as by 55% year-on-year.

Last year recorded upward trends in budget funding in all R&D fields compared to 2018, the most significant increases were seen in engineering and technology (by EUR 8.4 million) in absolute terms and social sciences in relative terms (23%).

The majority of R&D budget support in 2019 was allocated to engineering and technology as well as natural sciences, similar to past years. Altogether, these fields received EUR 135.2 million or 61.5% of the total R&D budget funding last year.

This year, R&D budget funds are expected to grow to EUR 250.1 million.