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The research-development expenditure accounted for 0.50 per cent of the GDP last year, the private sector contributing 0.29 per cent and the public sector 0.21 per cent, according to data released on Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).
In 2017, Romania spent 4.317 billion lei for the research-development activity.
In the end of last year, 44,801 people were hired in the research-development sector, slightly more than in the end of 2016.
In 2017, there were 4.317 billion lei spent for research-development, 3.924 of which represented current expenses, 90.9 per cent respectively, and 392.5 million lei capital expenses, 9.1 per cent respectively.
Expenditure on applicative research represented 62 per cent of the total expenditure on research-development, recording a growth of 8 percentage points, compared with expenditure in 2016. Expenditure on fundamental research recorded a growth of 14.2 per cent of the total expenditures on research-development, compared with the year 2016, from 5.1 per cent up to 19.3 per cent respectively. Expenditures on the experimental development dropped 2.4 percentage points, from 21.2 per cent up to 18.7 per cent.
By financing sources of total expenditures on research-development, in 2017, enterprises had the highest contribution, of 53.2 per cent respectively, followed by public funds, 34.8 per cent.
By performance sector, the largest amounts from public funds went to the governmental sector (77.8 per cent), followed by the high education units (50.4 per cent). Financing sources for research-development abroad were mostly oriented to the business environment units (39.4 per cent), the governmental sector (36.1 per cent) and high education sector (24 per cent).
By professional training, the number of employees working in research-development at the end of last year, 38,125 were university graduates (85.1 per cent) and 6,676 had other training levels (24 per cent).
In 2017, the number of persons who had a PhD or went to postdoctoral studies in research-development was 18,916 per cent, a slight increase compared to 2016. Out of the number of persons with doctoral and postdoctoral studies 9,228 were women.
By profession, in 2017, the highest weight of employees in research-development was represented by researchers 61.1 per cent out of the total, 27,267 employees respectively, down by 434 employees, compared with the year 2016. The weight of the "technicians and similar" category was of 13.9 per cent, 6,221 employees respectively.
