ERA Scoreboard shows slow progress towards 3% target of spending on R&D

The European Research Area (ERA) Platform has published on 02/06/2026 its scoreboard for 2025, showing that spending by the 27 EU member states on R&D has risen to 2.24% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The report highlights that four member states (Germany, Austria, Sweden, Belgium and Finland) spend more than the EU's target level of 3% of GDP on R&D.

France, Czechia, Italy, Hungary, Luxembourg, Bulgaria and Romania are identified as weaker performers with both below-average growth and below-average spending on R&D.

Other findings of the report, which shows the evolution of key indicators between 2010 and 2023, include an increase in the number of people working in research. It has risen to 4,913 per million head of population, from 3,055 in 2010. The proportion of open access publications has increased to 66.5% while the share of women in the highest academic positions has risen to 29.2% from 19.7%.

In addition, widening countries (i.e. those with a lower than average research performance) have improved with their total value of grants they received (per 1,000 full-time research…