Spending on research is rising almost everywhere – but is that because it costs more to do research, or because there’s more research being done? A new study commissioned by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation offers an answer: A bit of both, but especially more research.
The study, “Analysis of the evolution of the costs of research – trends, drivers and impacts”, finds that “research costs have grown in the past five years, on average by 47% across all industries”. The survey asked companies to assess whether that is primarily due to rising input prices or volume of research done. The results show that “total research costs have grown mainly due to a volume effect”.
The report is based on surveys carried out by a consortium of European organisations within the European Techno-Economic Policy Support Network (ETEPS network). The researchers surveyed 64 organisations from among the top 500 main European non-university PROs. On the company side, the survey collected information from 103 firms from the top 2,000 on the European Industrial R&D Scoreboard.
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