Figures from the industrial development agency Forfas show that spending on research and development (R&D) rose by 10.7% to €1.78 billion in 2004 and is estimated to have hit €1.9 billion in 2005.
Forfas says this amounted to 1.43% of gross national output, an improvement from 1.35% in 2002 but still behind the EU average of 1.85% and the OECD average of 2.24%.
Its report says that while business spending on R&D was up 16% to €1.15 billion, this was static as a percentage of economic output as it only matched the strong economic growth in the period.
Higher education spending on R&D rose by 53% to €492m in 2004, helped by Government funding through bodies such as Science Foundation Ireland. Public sector research spending grew by 10.7% to €138m. The number of researchers employed rose from 2,695 in 2002 to 4,152.
