Gross domestic expenditure on research and development
- Eurostat dataset
- rd_e_gerdtot
- Reference period
- 2024
- Unit of measure
- % of GDP
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2024): 2.24 % of GDP.
- Highest value: Sweden at 3.56 % of GDP; lowest: Montenegro at 0.29 % of GDP.
- Cross-country mean 1.71 % of GDP, standard deviation 0.91, coefficient of variation 53.0% across 32 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2013→2024: +13.2% on a constant panel of 32 countries.
How far is Europe from its research intensity objective? Eurostat dataset rd_e_gerdtot reports gross domestic expenditure on research and development for 32 reporting countries, with 2024 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 2.24 % of GDP. R&D intensity is the oldest quantitative target in European policy and remains largely unmet.
The five highest values in 2024 are recorded by Sweden (3.56), Belgium (3.36), Austria (3.26), Finland (3.22), Germany (3.13), all expressed in % of GDP. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Montenegro (0.29), Romania (0.46), Malta (0.54), Cyprus (0.65), Bulgaria (0.77). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 12.28, while the median country reports 1.48 % of GDP against a mean of 1.71 % of GDP.
Dispersion is wide: the standard deviation across countries is 0.91 % of GDP, giving a coefficient of variation of 53.0%. The mean sits above the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the upper tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2013 and 2024 the summed value across the 32 countries reporting in both periods moved by +13.2%. The largest relative increases are observed in Greece (+87.8%), Türkiye (+80.2%), Croatia (+70.9%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Malta (-26.0%), Montenegro (-23.7%), Luxembourg (-19.5%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
Higher values are the policy-preferred direction for this indicator, so the countries listed at the bottom of the distribution mark the effective size of the European gap: closing it to the level of the fifth-ranked country would require the lowest performer to move by 2.84 % of GDP. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset rd_e_gerdtot ('GERD by sector of performance'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-03-18. Filter dimensions: sectperf=TOTAL; unit=PC_GDP. Unit of measure: % of GDP. Reference period: 2024. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (32 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.