SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE/MADRID, 24 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Canary Islands was at the bottom of the autonomous communities in spending on internal R&D in 2021 with 105.9 euros per inhabitant, according to the ‘Statistics on R&D Activities’ corresponding to the year 2021 published this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
In addition, the archipelago mobilized a total of 238.5 million in this subsector, which is 1.4% of the national total and employed just over 4,000 people, 1.6%.
In Spain, spending on internal Research and Development (R&D) amounted to 17,249 million euros in 2021, which represents 1.43% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), compared to 1.41% in 2020.
By execution sectors, the ‘Companies’ sector represented the highest percentage of internal R&D spending, with 56.2% (which meant 0.80% of GDP), followed by the ‘Higher Education’ sector, with 26.6% (0.38% of GDP).
Meanwhile, spending on internal R&D in the ‘Public Administration’ sector accounted for 16.9% of national spending (0.24% of GDP). The remaining 0.3% corresponded to the ‘Private Non-Profit Institutions’ (IPSFL) sector. Expenditure on R&D increased by 9.2% compared to the previous year in ‘Higher Education’ and by 5.7% in ‘Public Administration’.
In accordance with the European Statistical System, the Statistics on Research and Development Activities (R&D) in the business sector has implemented the new statistical concept of Business. According to this modification, the statistical company can coincide with the legal unit, the business group or a part of a group of companies (the last two cases represent around 3% of the total).
Thus, the INE specifies, the results of the operation in said sector and its distribution by activities, company sizes and autonomous communities of the corporate headquarters are affected. Due to the methodological change, the business sector indicators are not comparable with those of previous years.
FINANCING OF INTERNAL R&D ACTIVITIES
Internal R&D activities were financed in 2021, mainly by the ‘Companies’ sector (50.2% of the total) and the ‘Public Administration’ (37.5%). Funds from the ‘Rest of the world’ (7.5%), ‘Higher Education’ (4.0%) and ‘IPSFL’ (0.9%) completed the financing.
By sector of execution, spending on internal R&D in the Public Administration and Higher Education was financed mainly by the Public Administration (80.0% and 71.5%, respectively). Regarding the financing of internal R&D expenditure in the Business sector, 84.0% came from the sector itself.
On the other hand, a total of 249,474 full-time equivalency (FTE) people were dedicated to internal R&D activities in 2021, which represented 12.6 per thousand of the total employed population. The group of researchers reached the figure of 154,125 people in full-time equivalence, which represented 7.8 per thousand of the total employed population.
40.5% of the full-time equivalent internal R&D staff were women. The highest percentages of female participation occurred in the Public Administration (54.0% of total employment) and in the IPSFL (52.3%). In Higher Education this percentage stood at 46.0%, while in the Business sector it was 31.1%.
On the other hand, companies in the Services sector concentrated 51.6% of internal business R&D spending in 2021, while those in Industry represented 46.4%. By branches of activity, R&D Services (with 19.6% of spending), Programming, consulting and other IT activities (10.9%) and Motor Vehicles (8.9%) stood out.
MADRID, CATALONIA AND ANDALUCIA, AT THE HEAD IN INVESTMENT
By autonomous communities, the ones with the highest investment in internal R&D in 2021 were Comunidad de Madrid (26.3% of the total), Catalonia (23.7%) and Andalusia (9.9%). On the other hand, the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla (with a share of total internal R&D spending of less than 0.1%) and La Rioja (0.4%) were the ones that invested the least.
In per capita terms, internal R&D spending amounted to 363.66 euros per inhabitant at the national level. The communities with the highest expenditure on internal R&D activities per inhabitant were the Basque Country (765.5 euros), the Community of Madrid (670.4) and the Foral Community of Navarra (591.9). On the contrary, those that registered the lowest expenditure per inhabitant were the autonomous cities of Ceuta (43.9 euros) and Melilla (67.2), and the Canary Islands (105.9).
