9.421
Increase of R&D expenditures in Austrian enterprises in
2007: +9%
Vienna, 01 July 2009 – According to the results of Statistics Austria’s R&D survey for the reference year 2007, R&D expenditures of Austrian enterprises accounted for almost 4.4 billion Euros. This continuous the increase of R&D expenditures and exceeds the value for 2006 (4.0 billion Euro) by more than 9%, that for 2004 by 36%. From the total R&D expenditures, 77% (3.4 billion Euro) can be attributed to the manufacturing sector and 22% (more than 950 million Euro) to the service sector. In this sector, the increase of R&D expenditures was 17% compared with 2006, much above average.
2.3 billion Euro, i.e. 53% of the total R&D expenditures, were labour costs. This corresponds to an increase of 12%, compared with 2006. Other current costs amounted to 1.7 billion Euros and rose by 9%. Capital expenditures for R&D (land and buildings, instruments and equipment) decreased by 7%, from 366 million to 341 million Euros.
In 2007, in total 2 469 Austrian firms reported R&D activities. This is an increase of 5% compared with 2006, when 2 344 enterprises indicated R&D activities. The respective figure for 2004 is 2 071.
Business enterprise sector is the most important source of funds for R&D
The R&D performing enterprises financed their expenditure mainly from own funds. 71% of all R&D expenditures were raised from the (domestic) business enterprise sector. 20% of the expenditures or 888 million Euros were inflows from abroad; the highest share, 14% of all R&D expenditures or 609 million Euros, were contributions from foreign enterprises of the same enterprise group. 8.4% of total R&D expenditures or 368 million Euros were funded by the public sector; the largest part of this amount is due to the "research premium". The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) contributed 100 million Euros to the 2007 R&D expenditures.
9% more R&D personnel – share of females remains at 15%
Altogether, approximately 33 600 full-time equivalents were engaged in R&D in 2007, an increase of 9% compared to 2006. The percentage of women among the R&D staff almost remained on the same level as in 2006 and was still 15%. The last increase of this indicator could be observed between 2002 and 2004 (from 13.6% to 15.0%).
54% of all R&D personnel belonged to the category "researchers", 39% to "technicians", and 7% are "other support staff". In the last group, the female proportion was highest (31%), whereas only 15% women were among technicians and 13% among researchers.
| Methodology, definitions: The R&D survey in the company-R&D
sub-sector for the reference period 2007 was conducted by Statistics
Austria using a sample of around 5 000 enterprises. The company-R&D
sub-sector is the largest sub-sector of the business enterprise sector
und covers enterprises producing for the market. The second sub-sector
of the business enterprise sector, the Institutes’ sub-sector, is
not included in the results here. The figures for the total business
enterprise sector will be published at a later stage. In this framework, "R&D expenditure" means "intramural R&D expenditure". These are all expenditure for R&D performed within the enterprise, whatever the source of funds. Expenditure for extramural R&D (expenditure paid to other units for the performance of R&D) is not included. |
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Statistics, Statistics Austria: Mr. Andreas SCHIEFER, Tel.
Medieninhaber, Hersteller und Herausgeber:
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Tomaschek
1110 Wien, Guglgasse 13, Tel.:
presse@statistik.gv.at © STATISTIK AUSTRIA
