Dutch public R&D expenditure going up this year

If the corona pandemic doesn’t spoil the party, the Dutch government will increase its spending on R&D and innovation this year, the Rathenau Institute predicts (link in Dutch). R&D expenditure is going up from 7.1 billion euros in 2018 to 7.7 billion in 2020. However, current projections show a gradual decrease to 7.4 billion in 2024.

The Dutch ambition for government and industry to spend 2.5 percent of GDP on R&D seems out of reach. In 2017, the most recent year for which all data is available, the research intensity stood at 2.2 percent. According to the Rathenau Institute, it would require an additional 4.8 billion euros to take that number up to 2.5 percent, to which the government would need to contribute an additional 1.4 billion euros on top of the current budget.