November 2005
Newspaper: Diario de Navarra

The average level of investment in R&D in the country stands at 1.07%

The sector of Higher Education is the one with the greatest planned increase in investment, 85.9% more than in 2003.

Internal expenditure on Research and Development (R&D) in Navarre represented 256.95 million euros in 2004, i.e. 1.9% of the region's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This figure rose by 44.4% in 2004 against 2003, according to provisional data from the Statistics Institute of Navarre.

The Autonomous Communities (regions) that invested most in R&D in 2004 -those above 1.4% of GDP- are, after Navarre, Madrid (1.76%), the Basque Country (1.54%) and Catalonia (1.44%). On average, the remainder of the regions spent less than 1.07% of their GDP on R&D.

In Navarre the Business sector presented the highest percentage of overall expenditure on R&D (64.91%, i.e. 1.23% of the region's GDP), followed by the Higher Education sector (with 30.05% of total expenditure, i.e. 0.57% of GDP). Expenditure on R&D in the Public Administration represents 5.02% of the total and 0.10% of GDP. The sector of private non-profit-making institutions in Navarre is hardly represented at all in Research and Development activities.

The sector that showed the strongest increase in expenditure on R&D was Higher Education, 85.9% up on 2003. The Public Administration invested 58.89% more in R&D than in 2003 and the Business sector rose by 30.02%.

A total of 4,041 people were dedicated to R&D in terms of full days worked in 2004, an increase of 3% over 2003.

The group of researchers reached 2,726 people/year, an increase of 5.2% on the previous year.