Financial_Resources_for_Science_&_Technology_in_India

R&D expenditure and the R&D intensity are the two key indicators generally used to monitor resources devoted to S&T worldwide. The global gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) has more than doubled from US $410 billion in 1990 to US $830 billion in 2002, in terms of current purchasing power parity (PPPs). However, the R&D intensity measured by the ratio of GERD over GDP has slightly declined from 1.8% to 1.7% during the corresponding period. It implies that despite sustained growth in world GDP and sustained increase in funding to R&D by the countries, the overall world share to R&D activities in world economic wealth has declined, though marginally5-6. Developing countries, for example generally spend less than 1% of their GDP on R&D, whereas developed countries spend between 1-3 % of their GDP on R&D. Among major geographical regions, North America leads in scientific investment, accounting for 37% of the world’s GERD in 2002. Its R&D spending, however, remained almost stagnant (US$302 billion in 1990 and US$307 billion in 2002), but its R&D intensity has increased slightly from 2.6% to 2.7% during the corresponding period 5-8. Asia has been the second largest investor in R&D with a share of 32% in 2002, overtaking Europe. This was due to the significant growth in share of China in world GERD (from 3.02% in 1990 to 8.07% in 2002) and of the “Newly Industrialized Countries of Asia” (from 4.9% in 1990 to 6.4% in 2002). These countries managed to withstood their financial crisis and massively increased their R&D investments (from US$ 8.2 billion in 1990 to US$ 53.3 billion in 2002), despite limited growth in their GDP5-8. Europe has been the third largest in R&D investments with US$ 226.2 billion spending in 2002. Its share in global R&D investments has, however, declined from 33.87% in 1990 to 27.30% in 2002. The decline has resulted from falling investment shares of “Central & Eastern Europe” and the “Community of Independent States of Europe”. The European Union spends around 1.9% of GDP on R&D and has set the target of 3% by 2010. R&D investments in Latin America have slightly declined in terms of world’s share from 2.75% in 1990 to 2.6% in 2002, but in absolute terms it has doubled (from US$ 11.3 billions to US$ 21.7 billions). Its R&D intensity has, however, slightly increased (from 0.5% to 0.6%) during the corresponding period. The Africa and Arab states remained by far the least R&D intensive continents, contributing 0.3% and 0.2% of its R&D investments respectively in world total5-8. Amongst developed countries during 2001, the largest spending in R&D was made by USA, followed by Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Russian Federation, Sweden, Spain, Australia and Switzerland. In most of them, R&D expenditure grew at varying rates (Table 3.5). Amongst developing countries, the largest expenditure on R&D was made by China during 2001, followed by India, South Korea, Brazil, Israel, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, and other developing countries below US$ 1 billion.