Expenses in 2023 for research and development activity amounted to 8.29 billion RON, 0.51% of GDP

The expenses incurred in 2023 for the research and development activity amounted to 8.288 billion RON, representing 0.51% of the Gross Domestic Product, of which 0.19% for the public sector and 0.32% for the private sector, according to the centralized data of National Institute of Statistics (INS).At the end of 2023, 48,103 employees were working in research and development, down 1.9% compared to 2022.According to the cited source, in 2023 8.288 billion RON were spent on the four performance sectors of the research and development activity, of which 7.355 billion RON were current expenses (88.7%) and 933.2 million RON were capital expenses , respectively 11.3%.According to the funding sources of the total research and development expenses, in 2023, the sources provided by enterprises had the highest weight, respectively 54.2%, followed by public funds (including general public university funds), respectively 28.4% .In terms of funding sources, the largest amounts from public funds were received by units from the government sector, with a weight of 80%, followed by units from the higher education sector, with a weight of 43.7%.The sources of funding for the research-development activity from abroad were mostly directed towards the units of the business environment sector (47.9%), the higher education sector (33.9%) and the government sector (15.2%).On December 31, 2023, 48,103 employees worked in research and development, of which 22,182 were women, respectively 46.1%.At the end of 2023, according to the level of professional training of employees who worked in research and development, 40,873 employees had higher education.From the total number of employees involved in the research and development activity, 40.5% had doctoral studies and postdoctoral programs as their training level, 44.5% had higher bachelor's, master's and/or courses and postgraduate studies and 15% other training level (exclusively higher). Among employees with doctoral studies and postdoctoral programs, 50.2% were women.Depending on the hours actually worked, 73.3% of the employees who carried out research-development activity in 2023, worked full-time.By occupation category, in 2023 the largest share of employees from the research and development activity was represented by researchers, 64.8% of the total, respectively 31,182 employees, an increase of 1,345 employees, compared to 2022.