the share of business in science expenditures exceeded 30%
Despite the growth in funding, which indicates support for science from both the state and business, Russia still spends about 1% of GDP on research and development and ranks only 43rd in this indicator, according to calculations by the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge at the National Research University Higher School of Economics based on data from Rosstat, the OECD, Eurostat, UNESCO and national statistical services. The conditional ranking of science spending leaders is Israel (6% of GDP), South Korea (5.2%), Taiwan (4%), the USA (3.6%), Sweden, Belgium and Japan (3.4% each).
Nevertheless, the ISSEK notes that the increase in spending in 2023 allowed the Russian Federation to rise to ninth place in terms of spending on science in absolute terms — $62 billion in purchasing power parity. In this measurement, the top five are the United States ($923 billion), China ($812 billion), Japan ($201 billion), Germany ($175 billion), and South Korea ($139 billion).
The volume of domestic expenditure on research and development (RD) in the Russian Federation in 2023 amounted to 1.6 trillion rubles, having increased by 214 billion rubles over the year in current prices. In terms of constant prices of 2015, the increase was 7.4%, while Russian GDP in 2023 grew by half as much - by 3.6%.
According to ISSEK data, in 2023, internal current expenditure on research and development increased for all types of work: the volume of applied research in constant prices increased by 6.9%, fundamental research by 1.3%, and development by 5.9%.
In 2023, R&D expenditures from government funds increased to RUB 1.099 trillion in current prices (up 6.3% in constant prices). The contribution of businesses also increased to RUB 505 billion (up 13.7% in constant prices). The ISSEK notes the growing importance of state corporations as investors in science: their internal R&D expenditures increased over the year to RUB 95 billion (up 42% in constant 2015 prices).
With such a relatively uniform increase, the structure of science expenditure by funding sources remained almost the same. Exactly two-thirds of domestic R&D expenditure (66.6%) are state funds. Business accounted for slightly less than a third of such expenditure in 2023 (30.6%, compared to 28.9% a year earlier). Another 1.1% are funds from foreign sources, and 1.6% of expenditures are designated as “other funds”.
