Georgia is among the countries who allocate the least amount of money for research and development.
Money spent on research and development (R&D) does not always yield immediate results, however, it is recognized as one of the prerequisites for creating an innovative ecosystem in the country. UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) assesses investments in the research and development in various countries of the world. The research provides information on the scope of investments made for this purpose by the government, higher education institutes, and the private sector of countries around the world through PPPs (public-private partnerships).
Almost half of the money invested in the research and development in the world comes from America and China.
Georgia is among the countries that spend the least amount of money on research and development. Namely, only 0.2% of the GDP is spent on R&D, which amounts to 63 million USD. The majority of the money goes to universities – 53.9 million USD and 9.5 million USD to the government.
The research also studies the number of researchers in the country. In Georgia, there are 1070 researchers per one million citizens. The majority of the researchers are female (53%).
The countries that spend the most amount of money on research and development are the following:
- USA: $ 476.5 billion and 26.4% of the world’s total expenditure
- China: $ 370.6 billion and 20.6% of the world’s total expenditure
- Japan: $ 170.5 billion and 9.5% of the world’s total expenditure
- Germany: $ 109.8 billion and 6.1% of the world’s total expenditure
- Korea Republic: $ 73.2 billion and 4.1% of the world’s total expenditure
- France: $ 60.8 billion and 3.4% of the world’s total expenditure
- India: $ 48.1 billion and 2.7% of the world’s total expenditure
- United Kingdom: $ 44.2 billion and 2.5% of the world’s total expenditure
- Brazil: $ 42.1 billion and 2.3% of the world’s total expenditure
- Russia: $ 39.8 billion and 2.2% of the world’s total expenditure
Almost 80% of the world’s total expenditure comes from these ten countries. The USA is in the lead for the number of researchers in the country with 4295 researchers per one million citizens, in China, 1095 researchers per one million citizens. China’s population is bigger than America’s but the USA is nevertheless ahead of China also in terms of the amount of money spent on R&D.
The picture changes slightly if we compare these expenditures to the GDPs of the countries. Namely, the countries that spend the most amount of money in relation to the GDP are as follows:
• Republic of Korea: 4.3% of GDP
• Israel: 4.2% of GDP
• Japan: 3.4% of GDP
• Switzerland: 3.2% of GDP
• Finland: 3.2% of GDP
• Austria: 3.1% of GDP
• Sweden: 3.1% of GDP
• Denmark: 2.9% of GDP
• Germany: 2.9% of GDP
• US: 2.7% of GDP
It is no surprise that Georgia is behind the abovementioned countries. However, Georgia is also behind many post-soviet countries and ahead of only three among them: Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Money spent on R&D in post-soviet countries is as follows:
• Azerbaijan: $ 352 million and 0.2% of GDP
• Belarus: $ 905 million and 0.5% of GDP
• Estonia: $ 544 million and 1.5 percent of GDP
• Lithuania: $ 850 million and 1% of GDP
• Russia $ 39 billion and 1.1% of GDP
• Armenia: $ 58 million and 0.2 percent of GDP
• Tajikistan: $ 25.7 million and 0.1% of GDP
• Uzbekistan: $ 341 million and 0.2 percent of GDP
• Ukraine: 2.4 billion and 0.7% of GDP
• Kazakhstan: 718 billion and 0.2 percent of GDP
• Kyrgyzstan: $ 24.5 million and GDP 0.1%
