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Publication - Progress report

National innovation strategy: scorecard - 2025 update

Published
25 September 2025
Directorate
Economic Development Directorate, +1 more … Chief Economist Directorate
Topic
Business, industry and innovation, Economy
ISBN
9781806431694

The national innovation strategy first published an innovation scorecard in 2023, tracking Scotland's performance against key metrics compiled from publicly available data. In the second annual update to the scorecard, Scotland’s innovation performance is compared to UK and global peers.

View supporting documents Supporting documents

2. GERD (Gross Expenditure on R&D)

2.1 Ecosystem

  • Investment

2.2 Performance Assessment

  • Performance Worsening

2.3 Description

  • Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) measures R&D expenditure investment in Business (BERD), Higher Education (HERD), Government (GovERD) and Charity (PNP) sector and is a proxy for total R&D spend. This is expressed as a percentage of GDP to allow for regional and international comparisons.
  • R&D and related concepts follow internationally agreed OECD definitions, as published in the Frascati Manual (2015). GERD is the OECD preferred measure of R&D activity for international comparisons.
  • Also tracked for insight and analysis are the main GERD sub-categories of Business Enterprise R&D spend (BERD), Higher Education R&D spend (HERD), and Government R&D spend (GovERD).

2.4 UK Regional Benchmark for GERD Main Sub-categories

  • Whilst a full regional breakdown for GERD is unavailable (as ONS have withheld some data), Scotland is in 3rd, 1st, and 2nd quartiles for BERD (1.34% in 2023), HERD (0.97%), GovERD (0.11%) respectively.
Chart 1: BERD as a % of GDP
A bar chart showing Scotland ranks 8th of the 12 regions in terms of BERD as a percentage of GDP.
Chart 2: HERD as a % of GDP
A bar chart showing Scotland ranks 1st of the 12 regions in terms of HERD as a percentage of GDP.
Chart 3: GovERD as a % of GDP
A bar chart showing Scotland ranks 5th of the 12 regions in terms of GovERD as a percentage of GDP.

2.5 Current Performance

  • GERD fell in Scotland from 2.58% of GDP in 2022 to 2.5% in 2023.
  • The fall was driven primarily by weaker Business Enterprise R&D expenditure, the only category of GERD which fell in absolute terms, and as a percentage of GDP.

2.6 Previous Year and Time Series

Table 2: R&D as % of GDP, 2022 and 2023
R&D as % of GDP 2023 2022
GERD 2.50% 2.58%
BERD 1.34% 1.43%
HERD 0.97% 0.98%
GovERD 0.11% 0.10%

2.7 UK Regional Benchmark

  • Regional breakdown is unavailable due to withheld data. On GERD, Scotland (2.50%) is below UK (2.64%).
Chart 4: GERD as a % of GDP
A bar chart showing Scotland is slightly below the UK in terms of GERD as a percentage of GDP.

2.8 International Benchmark

  • EU27 average GERD is 2.13% and OECD is 2.70%.
  • Scotland 14th & UK 13th in OECD countries (2nd quartile).
Chart 5: GERD as % of GDP – OECD 2023*
A bar chart showing Scotland ranks 14th and the UK 13th out of OECD countries in terms of GERD as a percentage of GDP.

Source: OECD

*Latest data for Australia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, NZ & Switzerland

2.9 About the Data

Contact

Email: innovation@gov.scot

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