9.372-90/09

Vienna, 6 May 2009 – The Austrian Gross Domestic Expenditure for Research and Development (R&D) – this is the total sum of expenditure for R&D carried out in Austria – will reach 2.73% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009 and therefore rise by 1.8% compared with 2008. Hence, according to the latest estimate of Statistics Austria, in 2009 altogether EUR 7.652 bn will be spent on R&D performed in Austria. This – compared with the previous years – considerably weakened development of the R&D expenditure is due to the current economic slump (between 2004 and 2008 an annual rise of 9.4% was observed on average).

45.0% of the total R&D expenditure 2009 (approx. EUR 3.44 bn) will be financed by the business enterprise sector. 39.9% (around EUR 3.1 bn) will be contributed by the public sector, 14.8% will be financed from abroad and 0.4% (around EUR 29 bn) by the private non-profit sector. Financing from abroad (EUR 1.13 bn) comes mainly from European enterprises of the same enterprise group that have chosen Austria as the location for their R&D activities and includes R&D-funds from the EU framework programmes for research, technological development and demonstration.

For more detailed information please refer to the German version.