R&D expenditure in the Netherlands by funding source and sector of performance

The financial sources of R&D consist of various organizations such as: organisations from abroad, private & non-profit organisations (PNP), higher education, companies and the Dutch government. 

Who pays what?

R&D is performed by three executive sectors:

1. Companies
2. Higher education 
3. Research institutions

For each sector, we look at the sources of funding for their R&D activities and the trends that can be observed.
 

1. Companies

Analysis
The absolute R&D expenditure of business enterprises is steadily increasing to almost 15.0 billion euros in 2022. Business enterprises are not very dependent on other parties for funding. Between 80% and 83% of companies' R&D funding ends up with the companies themselves, with a few peaks down.

Governmental funding of R&D in the corporate sector has declined from 2011 to 2.21% in 2012. The increase in 2017 is due to a revision of the Statistics Netherlands R&D statistics.
 

2. Higher education

Analysis
Governmental sources are the main funding sources for R&D activities executed by higher education institutions. On average, governmental sources are funding 77% of the total R&D expenditures of higher educational institutions since 2011. Furthermore, funding sources from abroad and business enterprises has slightly increased.
 

3. Research institutions

Analysis
The government is the most important financial source for research institutions. On average, governmental sources are funding 77% of the researches executed by such institutions since 2013. Due to a change in definition, data assessing the years before 2013 are not comparative with the current data.