Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

e-mail contact: ESTAT-SDI-EU2020-INDICATORS@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure.

Among other things, SDG 9 recognises the importance of technological progress and innovation for finding lasting solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges such as the creation of new jobs and promotion of resource and energy efficiency. To foster innovation and entrepreneurship, SDG 9 also seeks to increase access to financial services for small-scale enterprises and to bridge the digital divide by increasing access to information and communication technologies.
R&D and innovation are major drivers of competitiveness and employment in a knowledge-based economy. Greater investment in R&D provides new jobs in business and academia, increasing demand for scientists and researchers in the labour market.

Indicator can be considered as similar to global SDG indicator 9.5.2 "Researchers (in full-time equivalent) per million inhabitants".

The Europe 2020 strategy sets the target of “improving the conditions for innovation, research and development” and the European Commission has committed to invest at least 3% of the EU’s GDP in R&D by 2020 in the 2014 Commission Communication ‘Taking stock of the 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’.

The indicator measures the share of R&D personnel broken down by the following institutional sectors: business enterprise (BES), government (GOV), higher education (HES), private non-profit (PNP). Data are presented in full-time equivalents as a share of the economically active population (the ‘labour force’).

% of active population.

Calendar year.

The indicator is produced according to the high-level quality standards of European Statistics. Details on accuracy can be found in the metadata of the source datasets (see link to related metadata).

ESS (OECD/ESTAT joint questionnaire)

Data source: European Statistical System (ESS).

Data provider: Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, based on data reported by the countries with OECD/ESTAT joint questionnaire.

Every year

Indicator is updated annually in November.

T+1 year

New data points are disseminated within one year after the reference year.

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States plus the United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway, North Macedonia and Turkey.

All EU MS

Although the R&D data are compiled by the countries following the guidelines and definitions outlined in the Frascati Manual and the Regional Manual, data comparability across countries can be affected by different survey methods used.

> 10 years

Presented time series (including EU aggregates) starts in 2002.

> 4 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological break is longer than 4 data points.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Eurostat's annual monitoring report on Sustainable development in the EU (progress towards SDGs in the EU context).

See table  sdg_09_30

Eurostat dedicated section on SDGs: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/overview

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