Research & Development Headline Results 2016
Date published:
The NI R&D survey covers the Business Sector, Higher Education and Other Government financed activities.
Key points
In 2016 £739.3m was spent on Research & Development (R&D) by Businesses, Higher Education and Government in Northern Ireland (NI). This is a decrease of £9.4m (1.3%) in cash terms compared to the previous year. Over the year, Business R&D spend decreased by £15.3m, whereas Higher Education and Government R&D spend increased by £0.9m and £5.0m respectively from 2015 to 2016.
Of the £739.3m spent on total R&D, £523.8m (70.9%) was spent by Businesses, £193.8m (26.2%) by the Higher Education sector and the remainder (£21.7m or 2.9%) was Government expenditure.
The decrease in total expenditure was primarily due to a decrease of £15.3m (2.8% over the year) in Business expenditure. There was however, increases of £0.9m in Higher Education expenditure (0.5%) and £5.0m in Government expenditure (29.9%).
Of the twelve United Kingdom (UK) regions, Northern Ireland reported the largest annual decrease in (in-house) R&D expenditure over the year (-4.0%).
The ten biggest spending companies accounted for 38.8% of the total R&D spend in Northern Ireland in 2016, lower than in 2015 (46.6%).
There was a 4.7% increase (from 713 in 2015 to 748 in 2016) in the number of local and externally owned companies engaged in R&D over the year. Externally owned companies accounted for 59.8% of R&D expenditure compared to 40.2% of locally owned companies in 2016. R&D spend by locally owned companies reported an annual increase of 10.2% in cash terms.
R&D expenditure by Small and Medium-sized companies (SMEs) increased by 2.9% (£7.4m) from 2015 to 2016. In cash terms, since 2011 SME expenditure has increased by 85.3% (£120.0m) from £140.6m to £260.6m.