calendar tag arrow download print
Skip to content

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
18 April 2023
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 almost half of the research is experimental development.
  • The costs of R&D consist for 70% of personnel costs, 24% 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 2020 and 2021 are preliminary.

Analysis
In 2021, total R&D expenditure in the Netherlands (GERD) amounted to 19.5 billion euros. Of this, 67% was performed in the business sector (BERD: 13.0 billion euros), 28% in the higher education sector (HERD: 5.4 billion euros) and 6% in the research institutes (GOVERD: 1.1 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 46%. Within the sectors, the shares of the different types vary: 44% of the R&D performed by companies concerns experimental development, 45% is applied research and 11% is fundamental research; research institutions mainly perform applied research (65%) and fundamental research (24%) and  some applied research (11%). For hte higher education sector, experimental development is included in the other two types of research. 575 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, 24% are other current (material) costs, 4% goes to land and buildings and 3% is spent on instruments and equipment. Within the 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. In business enterprises, the share of labour costs is higher, while the shares for other current costs as well as costs for land and buildings are lower.
 

Related publications

Print this page