R&D statistics at a Glance

Research and development is the most crucial sector of growth of a country. It measures the power of a nation to protect itself from the enemy. Research and development statistics not only indicated the better quality of life but also better healthcare services. The US has been the top spender of R&D of its GDP. Not only the US’ government but also the major private companies of the USA like- Amazon, Google, and Apple spend tremendously on research and development to provide quality services to their customers. If we look at the statistics, just 10 countries spend almost 80% of the world’s expenditure on research and development. 

The expenditure of countries has been increasing sharply in the research and development sector. In hypersonic missile technology, developing high stealth warfare to reusable rocket launchers to research vaccines that can kill any variant of SARS viruses, every country is trying hard to make its mark in the research sector and make profits that can contribute to the GDP of the nation. 

If we look at the data of 2018, USA’s expenses in 2018 were $581 billion in the field of research and development. Countries are willing to spend more and more in the research and development sector for the upcoming decade.

Here, we have enlisted the countries as per expenditure of the percentage of their GDP-

The first position is acquired by Israel which spends around 4.95% of its GDP in the research and development sector. They are quite enthusiastic in investment in the cyber world, medical research and also in artificial intelligence because they think that this is the future of the nation.

Second position is held by South Korea which allocates 4.3% of its GDP to the research and development sector which amounts to $70 billion in value. 

Germany is on the third spot with the expenditure of around 3% of its GDP but it plans to spend 3.5% by 2025 on research and development.

Finland is not behind in the race with its fine allocation of 3.8% of its GDP in the research and development sector.

Switzerland spends 3.37% of its GDP in research and development.

The USA spends 2.84% of its GDP in the research and development sector. This amount is actually USD 441 billion because the US is a large economy.

China never leaves the US far from itself in any field, it holds the position just behind the US with a spending of 2.4% of its GDP to the research and development sector. 

India is also in the race in a pretty good position. Being a developing nation, we have our limitations as a lot of money goes to the welfare programmes only but still, we managed to spend a good 0.7% of its GDP in 2018-19. We are planning to spend up to 5% in this sector to boost the growth of our nation.

Top spenders on R&D in 2020-21- 

Now, China has successfully surpassed the US in expenditure on this field. China is spending around 621 USD on research and development. On the other hand, the US is spending around 599 USD on the same. This also shows that China is surpassing the US in the race of big economies around the globe. The list goes on with Japan in third position in terms of money spent on research and development as we know that Japan has always promoted the new technologies specially the robotics and artificial intelligence as their priority. 4th position is held by Germany while 5th is acquired by India with 93.48 USD spending in the research and development sector. The schemes such as ‘Make in India’ and also promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation in the start-up sector has placed India in the top 5 in list of top R & D spenders.

Conclusion-

We see that research and development statistics is an important feature of a country’s advancement. The number of technologies a country acquires shows the potential of a nation and reflects the innovative nature of that nation. Developed nations are standing in the front row because they are already having a lot of money to spend on such things. On the other hand, developing countries still have to spend a lot on their domestic issues.