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Published online 23 January 2008 | Nature 451, 378 (2008) | doi:10.1038/451378a
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How the world invests in R&D
The changing face of public and private funding.
The latest analysis from the US National Science Board (see Map) confirms that Israel leads the world in its economic devotion to research and development (R&D). Its civilian R&D spending in 2005 accounted for 4.
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This excelent Nature article lacks of the key criteria of separating the Military and Civil R&D. If you do not make creative accounting you will easily discover that strange countries like NOrth Korea are perhaps the top in the rank of % R&D/GNP devotion. Best regards Alberto
See the NSF report, available at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/, for the sources of these numbers (in chapter 4). The numbers for Israel and Taiwan are civilian R&D only, but the other countries include military. I don't know where you could find numbers that include military R&D for Israel and Taiwan - and data on North Korea are probably sparser than sparse....
I wonder why Spain does not appear on the map. According to one of the major newspapers in Spain (el pais) the investment of R&D in 2006 represented the 1.2 of GDP(http://www.elpais.com/articulo/futuro/gasto/I/D/subio/alcanzo/PIB/elpepusocfut/20071121elpepifut_5/Tes) which barely represents 50% of the average in the EU. From a personal experience, as a researcher, and being an eternal ex-pat, I can say, it is pretty difficult to work as a researcher in Spain given that a majority of personnel in R&D departments include temporary research fellowships that end up with no hope of permanent contracts. Also I must mention the problem of recognition of foreign degrees in Spain. Will the Bolonia treaty in 2010 will solve the problem of free movement of European and non-European scientists in Europe and fair recognition of foreign degrees?...
This article does't mention the R&D investment of India and Nepal.
Being a Swede and conducting cancer research at Karolinska Institutet I find it extremely hard to believe that Sweden should be among the leaders of the R&D spending in the world. Most of us are dependant on Brussels and Washington for support. I guess that the 3.86% includes both military R&D and what big pharma spends developing drugs. 3.86% does not end up at the universities that is for sure.
I think there is a confusion about the word "R&D". It doesn't exclusively mean the research done in universities and research institutes. The big part of the research and development in R&D is done in the industry .