Data released by Eurostat

According to the report released by Eurostat, Portugal has seen the seventh largest increase since 2015 in investment in Research and Development (R&D) activities. Last year our country reached 1.4% of national GDP in R&D, 0.16 percentage points more than in 2015. Moreover, in 2019, Portugal consolidated the 14th place in the ranking of the member states that invest most in R&D (15th place in 2015), in a process of convergence with the European average.

R&D intensity, the investment in Research and Development activities as a percentage of GDP, has also risen when looking at all 27 European Union (EU) Member States. In 2019, this stood at 2.19% of EU GDP (2.18% in 2018), the equivalent of more than 306 billion of investment.

At EU level, the business sector remains the largest investor in R&D, accounting for 66% of the total, followed by Higher Education (with 22%) and the government sector (responsible for 11% of R&D investment).

R&D investment by sector

The highest figure for R&D intensity in 2019 belongs to Sweden with 3.39% of GDP invested, followed by Austria and Germany with 3.19% and 3.17% respectively. According to the Eurostat report, it can still be seen that, compared to 2018, 17 Member States increased the amount invested. Looking at the data for the last 10 years, this confirms an increase in 19 EU countries and decreases in only six.

The process of convergence of Portuguese figures with the EU average in terms of R&D investment follows Portugal's good performance in other indicators and rankings, such as the European Innovation Scoreboard, where Portugal is already considered a "strongly innovative" country.

More information about the Eurostat report