Only 33 euros per year – that's how much Bulgaria spends per capita on R&D

Bulgaria allocated 33.10 euros per capita for research and development activities in 2023. Only Romania allocated lower funding levels within the European Union - 21.2 euros per capita, according to the current data of the European statistical office Eurostat.

For comparison, the average for the European Union is 275.6 euros per person. The highest levels are found in Luxembourg – 646.6 euros per capita or about 20 times higher than the funding level in Bulgaria.

Denmark and Germany rank second and third in terms of the most allocated funds for R&D – 552.4 euros and 529.3 euros per capita, respectively.

At the opposite pole, along with Bulgaria and Romania, is Hungary with 48.1 euros per capita invested by the state in research and development.

(graph)

In total, last year's budget funds for research and development activity in the EU amounted to approximately 124 million euros, which is equal to 0.73% of the bloc's gross domestic product. This represents 5.3% annual growth from 2022 and 54.8% growth on a ten-year basis since 2013.

A longer look back shows that over the past ten years, Latvia, Poland and Bulgaria have increased their per capita spending the most in percentage terms – by 291%, 147% and 133% respectively. However, this is due to the low starting base, which, in Bulgaria was only 14.2 euros per capita in 2013.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov