High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Monday, January 28, 2008
R&D Business Expenditure
There has been a significant gap in business R&D expenditure between Scotland and the UK and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) averages in recent years. Scottish Business Enterprise R&D (BERD) was £579 million in 2006. This represented 0.56 per cent of Scottish GDP; the comparable figures were 1.08 per cent for the UK and 1.09 per cent for the EU as a whole. Over the longer term from 1999 to 2006, BERD increased by 24 per cent in real terms, compared to an increase of 7 per cent in the UK as a whole. Nevertheless, Scotland continues to perform less well than the UK average on this measure.
The graph below shows how Scotland compares internationally.
Source: Scottish Government, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
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