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Published: 28 October 2010

Downswing in business enterprises’ investments in R&D

Business enterprises decreased their expenditure on research and development (R&D) activities by good EUR 250 million from the previous year. Expenditure has never before gone down during the entire time period starting from 1971 over which Statistics Finland has compiled statistics on R&D investments. R&D expenditure decreased in several industries, but by most, or by around EUR 90 million, in the electronics industry. In 2009, business enterprises’ R&D expenditure totalled EUR 4.85 billion.

R&D expenditure by sector and GDP share of R&D expenditure in 2003–2009 and estimate for 2010

Year	Business enterprises 1)		Public sector 2)		Higher education sector		Total	GDP share of R&D expenditure 3)
	EUR million	%	EUR million	%	EUR million	%	EUR million	%
2003	3 527,9	70,5	515,4	10,3	961,7	19,2	5 005,0	3,44
2004	3 683,5	70,1	530,1	10,1	1 039,8	19,8	5 253,4	3,45
2005	3 876,9	70,8	554,7	10,1	1 042,1	19,0	5 473,8	3,48
2006	4 107,8	71,3	574,2	10,0	1 079,2	18,7	5 761,2	3,48
2007	4 513,4	72,3	564,7	9,0	1 164,6	18,7	6 242,7	3,47
2008	5 102,0	74,3	588,5	8,6	1 180,6	17,2	6 871,1	3,72
2009	4 847,2	71,4	656,5	9,7	1 282,8	18,9	6 786,5	3,96
2010 4)	4 919,3	71,0	644,5	9,3	1 362,0	19,7	6 925,8	3,90

1) Revised reporting practices of enterprises explain around EUR 350 million of the growth between 2007 and 2008.
2) Incl. PNP (private non-profit sector).
3) GDP 2008–2009 preliminary data of Statistics Finland, GDP 2010 forecast by the Ministry of Finance.
4) Estimate based on survey responses and other calculations.

However, the total amount of R&D expenditure was only EUR 85 million smaller than in the previous year, because expenditure on R&D went up clearly in the public sector and in the higher education sector. In the public sector the growth amounted to EUR 68 million, putting its R&D expenditure at EUR 660 million. The EUR 1.28 billion R&D expenditure of the higher education sector included an annual increase of EUR 102 million. As the shares of the other sectors grew, business enterprises’ share of all R&D expenditure fell from 74 to 71 per cent.

In 2009, expenditure on R&D totalled nearly EUR 6.8 billion, equalling 3.96 per cent share of GDP. Due to fallen GDP, the share was 0.24 percentage points higher than in the year before. According to estimates, R&D expenditure will go up by around EUR 140 million and total good EUR 6.9 billion in 2010. The GDP share is also expected to remain high at 3.90 per cent. For a long time now Finland’s GDP share of R&D expenditure has been the highest after Sweden among the EU and OECD countries, and even among other countries the only one ahead of it is Israel.

Source: Research and development 2009, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Tero Luhtala (09) 1734 3327, Marianne Kaplas (09) 1734 3421, tiede.teknologia@stat.fi

Director in charge: Leena Storgårds

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Appendix tables

• Business enterprises: R&D personnel, person-years and expenditure by industry and size of enterprise in 2009 (Excel) (28.10.2010)

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Updated 28.10.2010