UK
Business enterprise R&D (BERD) in the UK continues its upward rise, growing 4.9% in 2017 to £23.7 billion ($30.4 billion). In constant price terms, such expenditures have a CAGR of 4.3% since 1993. In 2017, total BERD accounted for 1.1% of the country’s GDP.
Pharmaceuticals continued to be the largest BERD “product group.” A product group is defined as “the type of research and development (R&D) performed, in contrast to the industry classification of the business performing the R&D.” Pharmaceuticals reported 2017 expenditures of £4.3 billion ($5.5 billion), a 6.0% increase, to represent 18% of total BERD. The R&D services product group’s R&D spending expanded 8.3% to £1.1 billion ($1.4 billion). But the chemicals and chemical products category’s BERD dropped 14.5% to £870 million (1.1 billion). Software development was the product group with the fastest BERD increase in 2017, jumping 34.7% to £1.4 billion ($1.8 billion). Classified by industry, scientific R&D had the greatest BERD levels in 2017 at £5.4 billion ($6.9 billion), a 1.2% increase to 23% of total BERD, compared to 24% in 2017.
By funding source, self-funding represented 75% of BERD in 2017, or £17.7 billion ($22.7 billion), a 6.7% rise. In contrast, foreign R&D funding for UK businesses declined 7.4%, including a 50.5% drop in grants from the European Commission, to make up 14% of total UK BERD funding. Government funding for business R&D grew 5.8% last year to represent 8%.
UK businesses’ number of full-time equivalent R&D employees grew 7.4% in 2017 to 215,000, with 49% classified as researchers., compared to 45% in 2016.
