During the period between 2018 and 2021, Luxembourg plans to spend €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) on R&D, with the FNR, the country’s National Research Fund, receiving €340 million ($381.8 billion). Currently, Luxembourg’s public R&D spending is close to the EU average of 0.7% of GDP.

Support for research spending is both public and bipartisan in Luxembourg. While the country previously revamped its economy by investing in banking and finance in the 1990s, the government is aiming for another economic overhaul by focusing on science and innovation investments to reduce the nation’s dependence on finance. To achieve this, establishing a high-technology sector is key.

The nation is prioritizing programs that will help boost the growing economy, including space and satellite businesses, and information and communications technology. The FNR is also highlighting biomedicine, with the goal of uniting life science and data science. An example of this is the FNR’s support of a national study cohort for Parkinson’s disease, in which patient samples are analyzed for biomarkers and assigned differing diagnoses and recommendations for each treatment, resulting in extremely high-quality data.

In addition, the linchpin of science in Luxembourg, the Belval Innovation Campus, is the site of one of the largest urban regeneration projects in Europe, totaling €1 billion ($1.1 billion). Belval is home to the namesake university, as well as research centers and business incubators.

Source: Financial Times