site.btaR&D Spending Up by 4.9% in 2021 from 2020

Expenditure on research and development activity (R&D) amounted to BGN 1,074 million in 2021, which is an increase by 4.9% from a year earlier, the National Statistical Institute said on Monday. 

R&D intensity (R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP) stood at 0.77%, which is 0.08 points lower than in 2020. 

R&D expenditure in the business enterprise sector accounted for 65.8% of the total such expenditure in 2021, followed by the  government sector with a share of 27.1%. The share of spending on R&D by tertiary schools and university hospitals amounted to 6.5%, and by non-profit organizations, to 0.6 per cent of the total R&D expenditure. 
      
Last year's R&D activity was financed from the state budget, businesses, other national sources and foreign sources. The largest share of R&D funds came from foreign sources, 40.1%. The business enterprise sector accounted for 32.9% of financing for R&D activity, followed by the state budget - 26.1%. 
 
In the structure of R&D expenditure by fields of science, the highest share in 2021 belonged to R&D expenditure in technical sciences - 51.5%, followed by medical and health sciences with a share of 19.2%, and natural sciences - 17.4%. 
     
In 2021, R&D personnel numbered 25,122, down by 3.7% from 2020. The share of women in total R&D personnel was 47.5%.

The bulk of R&D personnel in 2021 was in companies and research institutes in the business enterprise sector, 52%, or 13,056 people. The R&D staff in the government sector accounted for 32.4% of the total such personnel, and in tertiary education, for 15.1%.