Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

risen by €790 million or 7.53%
since 
the previous survey in 2015. Since the nominal 
growth in GDP over the same period was almost 
identical at 7.56%, research intensity (R&D expen-
ditures as a percentage of GDP) did not increase, 
unlike in previous periods. At 69.9%, the business 

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Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020
enterprise sector was responsible for the largest 
share of R&D expenditure, followed by the higher 
education sector with 22.4%. The government sec-
tor accounted for 7.1% and the private non-profit 
sector for 0.5%.
Looking at R&D expenditure by economic sector, 
manufacturing dominates, with a combined total of 
almost two thirds (65.5%) of all R&D expenditure. 
In percentage terms, therefore, the sector contrib-
utes nearly three and a half times as much to R&D 
as it does to Austria’s total gross value added. 
Manufacturing in Austria is becoming increas-
ingly research-intensive.
Although the proportion 
of service segments classified as high-technology 
and knowledge-intensive is still fairly low at 19.6%, 
it has risen considerably since 2007 (15.7%). 
In the higher education sector, there are some 
relatively significant variations in R&D expenditure 
across different fields of science, with natural sci-
ences contributing the most at €722 million. 
Re-
search at higher education institutions is pre-
dominantly funded by the public sector
, self-fi-
nancing by the institutions (including tuition fees 
and expert assessments commissioned by third 
parties) accounts only for a small proportion. At 
11.1%, the largest share contributed by the busi-
ness enterprise sector went towards the engineer-
ing sciences, while the natural sciences received 
the bulk of EU-funded R&D.