Government spending on research and development last year rose by 4% to €11.9 million, the NSO said today. It said that R&D spending was measured through a survey carried out in the first quarter of 2010. The total number of respondents was 141 units, of which 15 were actively engaged in R&D projects during 2009. Four of these units were government departments, while 11 were Extra Budgetary Units (EBUs).

The NSO said that labour costs represented 72.5 per cent of total expenditure on R&D whereas other recurrent expenditures and capital projects had a share of 22.3 and 5.2 per cent respectively.

In line with past years, the highest R&D expenditure in the government sector was recorded in the field of social sciences, at 29.1 per cent of total expenditure, followed by engineering and technology and medical sciences, with 17.8 per cent apiece. In 2009, 954 employees were engaged in R&D work within the government , of whom 890 worked on a part-time basis.