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Total R&D in the Netherlands by sector of performance and source of funds, R&D activity type and type of costs

data publication
Science in Figures
16 January 2025
research research and development R&D
This publication provides information about the organisations that perform R&D in the Netherlands, divided into companies, higher education and research institutions. We show three graphs for these categories: we distinguish the R&D performed in the Netherlands by a) source of funding, b) type of R&D activity and c) type of costs. Data is presented for the most recent year for which data is available.

In short

  • Companies fund a little over half of the R&D performed in the Netherlands, followed by the higher educations sector, and research institutes.
  • The majority of this for all sectors together is applied research, within companies 42% of the research is experimental development.
  • The costs of R&D consist for 70% of personnel costs, 23% other running costs, 4% land and building and 3% equipment.

R&D expenditure in the Netherlands by performing sector and source of funds

Source: Statistics Netherlands
Notes: X-as: performing sectors; Y-as: funding sources. Research institutes as performing sector includes the private non-profit (PNP) organizations. The higher education sector includes universities, universities of applied sciences and university medical hospitals. The research institutions are classified as R&D funder in the government sector. The figures for 2022 are preliminary.

Analysis
In 2022, total R&D expenditure in the Netherlands (GERD) amounted to 21.6 billion euros. Of this, 68% was performed in the business sector (BERD: 14.8 billion euros), 27% in the higher education sector (HERD: 5.7 billion euros) and 5% in the research institutes (GOVERD: 1.0 billion euros).

Companies fund a little over half of the R&D performed in the Netherlands, while almost one third is funded by the government, 10% comes from abroad and 2% is funded by private non-profit organizations. While business enterprises are the main funder of the R&D carried out in the private sector, government is the main funder of R&D in the higher education sector and the research institutes sector.
 

R&D expenditure in the Netherlands by performing sector and type of activity

Source: Eurostat

Analysis
Looking at the types of R&D activity, we see that when all sectors are taken together applied research account for 47%. Within the sectors, the shares of the different types vary: 42% of the R&D performed by companies concerns experimental development, 49% is applied research and 10% is fundamental research; research institutions mainly perform applied research (43%) and fundamental research (40%) and  some applied research (17%). For the higher education sector, experimental development is included in the other two types of research. 57% of research is fundamental, 43% is applied.  
 

R&D expenditure in the Netherlands by performing sector and type of costs

Source: Eurostat
Notes: Research institutes as performing sector includes the private non-profit (PNP) organizations. The higher education sector includes universities, universities of applied sciences and university medical hospitals. An update of these data is currently unavailable. 

Analysis
70% of R&D expenditure consists of personnel costs, 23% are other current (material) costs, 4% goes to land and buildings and 3% is spent on instruments and equipment. Within the companies and research institutes, the distribution is about the same. Higher education has a smaller proportion of personnel costs, but larger shares of material costs and costs of land and buildings. 
 

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