Gross expenditure on research and development Scotland 2021

Key Points

• Gross Expenditure on Research & Development (GERD) spend in Scotland was estimated at £5,033 million in 2021, an increase of 4.9% on 2020. UK GERD increased by 7.0% over the same period 
• estimated at 2.98% in 2021, Scotland’s GERD as a share of GDP was above that of the OECD (2.71%) and the EU (2.15%)
• the largest components of R&D expenditure were the business sector at £3,121 million (62.0% of Scotland’s GERD), followed by the higher education sector at £1,650 million (32.8% of Scotland’s GERD)
• Scotland’s Higher Education R&D (HERD) expenditure as a share of GDP ranked top of the OECD countries in 2021
• the methodology used to produce estimates of R&D performed in the business (BERD) and higher education (HERD) sectors was improved in our GERD Scotland 2020 publication; estimates in this release have been compiled using those improved methodologies. Note that there is still uncertainty around the robustness of the new BERD estimates for Scotland