Research and development in the business enterprise sector, 2004, preliminary figures

The compensation of employees to own R&D personnel has increased slightly since the R&D man-years are at the same level as in 2003. The decrease in total R&D expenditure of 4.5 per cent is due to decrease in other current costs than compensation of employees and acquisition of machinery, equipment and buildings. Both cost components are reduced by NOK 300 million.

The number of enterprises performing R&D is at the same level as in 2003. Approximately 1/5 of the enterprises had R&D activity in 2004. The reduction in R&D expenditure means that the R&D performing enterprises on average have reduced their R&D activity.

Small and medium sized enterprises increased its proportion of the total R&D expenditure in 2001, 2002 and 2003 reducing the proportion of the large ones. This trend has now halted. Large enterprises with more than 250 employees had a small increase in the R&D expenditure in 2004, while small enterprises have experienced a decrease. Large enterprises' proportion of total R&D has thus increased from 43 per cent in 2003 to 46 per cent in 2004

The 20 largest R&D enterprises represented 27 per cent of all R&D activity in Norwegian businesses in 2004, compared with 23 per cent in 2003. In comparison the dominance of large enterprises is higher in Sweden. The 20 largest Swedish enterprises represented 70 per cent of the total R&D activity in the Business enterprise sector.

The manufacturing industry has traditionally been the main R&D contributor within the business enterprises sector, as was the case also in 2004. The proportion was 53 per cent. But manufacturing enterprises decreased their R&D expenditure by 7.4 per cent from 2003 resulting in a lower proportion. The share in 2003 was 55 per cent.

The service industry increased their R&D activity by 3.3 per cent from 2003 to 2004. Consequently the service industry increased their proportion of total business R&D from 34 per cent in 2003 to 38 per cent in 2004.

The R&D statistics is based on information collected from the enterprises. In the survey all enterprises with at least 50 employees are included. In addition a sample of enterprises with 10-49 employees is selected and based on this sample total figures for this group is calculated. For this reason the uncertainty in the results for the small enterprises is higher than the large ones.

Total R&D and international comparison

Total R&D expenditure for all sectors, including government and higher education sector, amounted to 27,7 billion NOK in 2004. This figure represents a nominal increase of 1.4 per cent from 2003. Total R&D as percentage of GDP is 1.62 per cent for 2004 and is significantly lower than the corresponding figure of 1.73 per cent for 2003. This decrease is due to high increase in GDP, 8.5 per cent from 2003. For comparison the proportion for Sweden was 3.7 per cent, for Finland 3,5 per cent and for Denmark 2,6 per cent, all preliminary figures for 2004. Preliminary figure for the average of EU15 was 1.95 per cent for 2004. The EU15 share is slightly lower than for 2003. Of the Nordic countries Sweden also had a decrease from 2003.

It is the R&D-share for the business enterprise sector that falls for Norway. For 2004 the share is 0.75 per cent of total GDP, while the share in 2003 was 0.85. By including the research institutes serving the industry the share raise to 0.89 per cent. The corresponding proportions in Sweden, Finland and Denmark were 2.75 per cent, 2.46 per cent and 1.81 per cent for 2004.

More information is also available at NIFU STEP, http://www.nifustep.no .

Tables:

• Table 1 Intramural R expenditures and R man-years, by type of costs, size classes and industry. 2003 and 2004