EU R&D government allocations up by 61% in 10 years

In 2025, EU governments allocated an estimated €130 200 million on their budgets to R&D (GBARD), equivalent to 0.69% of GDP. This indicates a 2.4% increase from 2024 (€127 144 million) and a 60.5% increase compared with 2015 (€81 138 million).

This information comes from data on government budget allocations for R&D (GBARD) published by Eurostat today. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.

In 2025, government budget allocations for R&D at EU level stood at €288.9 per inhabitant, a 57.7% increase compared with 2015 (€183.2 per inhabitant).

Luxembourg (€917.2 per inhabitant) recorded the highest R&D budget allocations per person among EU countries, followed by Denmark (€627.1) and Germany (€553.5). On the other hand, the lowest were in Romania (€18.8), Hungary (€57.4) and Malta (€73.7).

Source dataset: gba_nabsfin07

Compared with 2015, Romania (-9.6%) was the only EU country that registered a decrease in its budget allocations for R&D in terms of € per inhabitant, down from €20.8 in 2015 to €18.8 in 2025.

The other EU countries registered increases, ranging between +14.7% in Sweden (from €363.4 per inhabitant in 2015 to €416.7 in 2025) and +495.5% in Bulgaria (from €15.5 to €92.3).

General university funds receive more than a third of the R&D budget

In terms of distribution by socioeconomic objectives, 37.3% of the GBARD was directed to the general advancement of knowledge, primarily financed by a public block grant known as public general university funds (GUF), used by public higher education institutions to support their activities. Additionally, 18.4% of the GBARD was dedicated to the general advancement of knowledge from sources other than GUF, 9.5% to industrial production and technology, 6.7% to health, and 5.8% to defence.

Source dataset: gba_nabsfin07