Romania’s R&D investments still lag behind EU-agreed target

Romania has a lot of catching up to do to reach the target agreed with EU in the field of research & development by 2020. The local R&D investments should amount to 2% of the GDP by 2020. However, the country invested only 0.38% of its GDP in R&D activities in 2014, according to EU’s statistical office Eurostat. Moreover, Romania’s investments in the R&D sector declined by 0.19 percentage points between 2008 and 2014. Bulgaria, by comparison, wants to reach a target of 1.5% by 2020, and its R&D investments totaled 0.8% of the GDP in 2014. Hungary, on the other side, is much closer to reaching its target. The country invested 1.37% of its GDP in research & development in 2014, and it wants to reach a target of 1.8% by 2020. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic set a target of only 1% of GDP spend for R&D, which it surpassed. The country’s spending on research and development was close to 2% in 2014. The EU 2020 target is to increase R&D spending to 3% of the member states’ GDP. In 2014, the level was little over 2%. Finland and Sweden had the most ambitious targets, aiming to reach 4% of their GDP spend on R&D. More detailed information is available here. The EU countries made a series of commitments with the EU on improving key factors such as employment, education, social inclusion, and energy by 2020. Romania has seen better results in the renewable energy field. A quarter of the energy consumed in Romania comes from renewable sources, over the 24% target agreed with the EU for 2020. Researchers in Romania won’t pay income tax anymore editor@romania-insider.com