Three Countries That Spend the Most on Research & Development

Investment in research and development (R&D) has become essential within the post-pandemic era where product innovation will play a very important role in increasing a country’s economic process. Here are the top three countries which spend the biggest proportion of GDP to fund R&D projects per data released by The World Bank;

1. South Korea

South Korea is home to tech giants like Samsung and between 1960 and 2019, the country recorded GDP growth averaging 7.3% per year. Apart from the booming tech industry, the country has an intensive defense sector due to its strategic location on the world map. South Korea has been motivating local suppliers to make and test sophisticated chipmaking materials like photoresist, after Japan last year imposed export curbs on high-tech chip materials.

The country also has stable GDP growth, increasing by an average of 16% per year between 1961 and 2019. It spent 4.81% of GDP on R&D in 2018, according to World Bank data.

2. Israel

In 2018, Israel spent 4.95% of GDP on R&D, in keeping with The World Bank. Israel’s Innovation Authority recently granted $585 million in protection to 10 institutions that invest within the country’s high-tech startups.

The country also approved plans to produce a security net for institutional investors participating in late-stage funding rounds by high-tech companies, seeking to encourage them into a sector vital to the economy. Israel benefits from an influx of skilled, educated engineers and technicians who moved there within the early 1990s, in step with the OECD.

3. Switzerland

R&D and Innovation are a drive behind Switzerland’s financial success in recent years and in step with data, the country spends 3.37% of GDP on R&D. The country has the world’s highest R&D spend per capita and was the top-ranked nation within the Global Innovation Index, supported indicators including investments, patent applications, and high-tech exports.

“Switzerland doesn’t have any oil fields, but we’ve got brains,” said Swiss National Science Foundation spokesman Christophe Giovannini. The SNSF distributes 1 billion francs a year to research projects.

Switzerland’s main export market is that the international organization – while not a member of the EU, it’s a celebration of a variety of treaties that allow it to trade freely with EU nations. The country’s main industrial sectors are pharmaceuticals, luxury items like watches. Kraftwerk Tools and Novamem are two companies using their skills to launch new products during the Covid-19 crisis.