The R&D expenditure index in Greece stood at 1.49% of GDP in 2023, compared to 1.48% in 2022, placing our country in 14th place among EU27 countries, according to data from the National Documentation Center.
In absolute terms, the expenditure made in Greece for R&D amounted to 3.3 billion euros in 2023, up 292.39 million euros compared to 2022 (an increase of 9.5%).
As the comparative data show, Greece returned to the performance of 2020 in terms of Research and Development, after a declining 2021 performance and an improvement recorded in 2022. Our country is also much lower than the EU average, which stood at 2.27% in 2023.
Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain are the 5 countries with the highest spending on Research and Development in 2023.
According to analysts, the R&D Intensity indicator is one of the most important indicators of R&D statistics, for monitoring the development dynamics of countries internationally, as indicatively in the monitoring indicators of pillar 9 concerning “Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure”, the monitoring of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, while it is also taken into account in the indicators of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) Scoreboard of the European Commission.
Based on these data, Greece must demonstrate a faster pace in spending on Research and Development and greater effort for the best result of research spending and their use by the market.
As the data from 2016 to 2023 show, the trend of the R&D expenditure index is upward but the pace is not sufficient to produce spectacular results, especially in terms of the country’s ranking among all EU27 member states.
