Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill 2022-23
A briefing on the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill 2022-23

R&D spending in the UK. Including analysis of R&D by region and industry, and international comparisons of R&D.
Research and development spending (540 KB , PDF)
Research and development (R&D) refers to creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge.
In the UK in 2019, total expenditure on R&D was £38.5 billion, £577 per head, or the equivalent of 1.74% of GDP.
R&D investment has risen steadily over the past few decades, from £20.4 billion in 1986 to the current total of £38.5 billion (in 2019 prices). This is a real terms increase of 96%.
But as a proportion of GDP, R&D expenditure has fallen over this period. It was the equivalent of 1.84% of GDP in 1985.
The Government has a target for total R&D investment to reach 2.4% of GDP by 2027. This target is discussed further in our briefing on R&D funding policy.
The business sector is the largest funder of R&D performed in the UK. In 2019, it funded £20.7 billion (54%) of R&D.
Public sector funding for R&D was £10.45 billion in 2019, 27% of the total. The higher education sector was the largest recipient of public sector R&D funding. The Public sector includes the UK Government and devolved administrations, UK Research & Innovation and the devolved higher education funding councils.
The business sector performed R&D worth £25.9 billion in 2019, 67% of the total. Most of the funding for this R&D came from the business sector.
The higher education sector performed R&D worth £9.1 billion, 24% of the total. The higher education sector receives most of its R&D funding from the public sector.
The public sector performed £2.7 billion of R&D in 2019, 7% of the total.
In 2019, R&D performed in the South East of England was worth £9.1 billion. This was equivalent to 20% of total UK R&D and the highest of all countries and regions. R&D performed in the South East, the East of England and London accounted for 54% of all UK R&D.
Per head, R&D expenditure in the East of England was the highest at £1,106 per head in 2019. The figure for the whole UK was £577 per head. In Wales, R&D expenditure was £252 per head.
There were around 486,000 full-time equivalent R&D-related roles in the UK in 2019. Of these, 65% were researchers, the remainder were technicians and administrative staff that directly contribute to research.
Around 56% of R&D roles were in UK businesses, 39% were in higher education (including graduate students), 3% in the public sector and 2% in private non-profit organisations.
The UK R&D expenditure of 1.7% of GDP is below the OECD average of 2.5% in 2019.
R&D expenditure in Germany was the equivalent of 3.2% of GDP in 2019, in the US it was 3.1% and in France it was 2.2%.
The world’s top three companies investing in R&D in 2019 were Alphabet (Google’s parent company from the USA), which invested £20.4 billion in R&D in 2019, Microsoft (from the USA), which invested £15.1 billion, followed by Huawei (from China), which invested £14.7 billion.
In the UK, the top company investing in R&D was GlaxoSmithKlein, a pharmaceuticals company, which invested £4.5 billion in R&D in 2019.
Research and development spending (540 KB , PDF)
A briefing on the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill 2022-23
Summarises data on animal experiments in Great Britain, including species used, creation and breeding of genetically-altered animals, severity of procedures, and university experiments.
A debate has been scheduled in Westminster Hall at 6.00pm on Monday 11 July 2022 on e-petition 597171, relating to the hunting of dolphins and whales in the Faroe Islands. The subject for the debate has been nominated by the Petitions Committee, and the debate will be opened by John Nicholson MP.