Total R&D in the Netherlands by sector of performance and source of funds, R&D activity type and type of costs
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
| Abroad | Private non profit | Higher Education | Government | Business enterprises | |
| Business enterprises | 1567 | 141 | 19 | 982 | 12097 |
| Research institutes | 121 | 11 | 16 | 785 | 102 |
| Higher Education | 522 | 342 | 0 | 4502 | 413 |
| Total | 2210 | 494 | 35 | 6269 | 12612 |
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
| Experimental development | Applied research | Basic research | |
| Business enterprises | 6148 | 1412 | 7246 |
| Research institutes | 181 | 413 | 441 |
| Higher education | 0 | 3307 | 2472 |
| Total | 6329 | 5132 | 10159 |
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
| Instruments and equipment | Land and buildings | Other current costs | Labour costs | |
| Business enterprises | 496 | 367 | 3076 | 10867 |
| Research institutes | 37 | 21 | 244 | 733 |
| Higher education | 100 | 391 | 1682 | 3605 |
| Total | 633 | 779 | 5002 | 15205 |
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.