From 2013 to 2015 Iceland’s R&D expenditures increased as a percentage of GDP from 1.76% to 2.19%. Over the same period R&D expenditures have been stable in the European Union, between 2.03% and 2.04% of GDP. R&D expenditures as percentage of GDP are now similar in Iceland to France and Slovenia. In 2015 Sweden has the highest percentage, at 3.26%, ahead of Austria with 3.07% and Denmark with 3.03%. R&D expenditures in Finland dropped from 3.29% to 2.9% over the three year period. Statistics Iceland has been managing R&D statistics since 2013, which marked the start of new time-series.
| R&D expenditures as percentage of GDP in Europe 2015 | |||||
| Higher | Private | ||||
| All sectors | Enterprises | Goverment | education | nonprofit | |
| Sweden | 3.26 | 2.27 | 0.11 | 0.88 | 0.01 |
| Austria | 3.07 | 2.18 | 0.14 | 0.75 | 0.01 |
| Denmark | 3.03 | 1.87 | 0.07 | 1.08 | 0.01 |
| Finland | 2.90 | 1.94 | 0.24 | 0.71 | 0.02 |
| Germany | 2.87 | 1.95 | 0.43 | 0.50 | … |
| Belgium | 2.45 | 1.77 | 0.19 | 0.49 | 0.01 |
| France | 2.23 | 1.45 | 0.29 | 0.45 | 0.03 |
| Slovenia | 2.21 | 1.69 | 0.30 | 0.23 | 0.00 |
| Iceland | 2.19 | 1.42 | 0.11 | 0.67 | … |
| European Union | 2.04 | 1.30 | 0.24 | 0.47 | 0.02 |
| Netherlands | 2.01 | 1.12 | 0.25 | 0.65 | … |
| Czech Republic | 1.95 | 1.06 | 0.40 | 0.48 | 0.01 |
| Norway | 1.93 | 1.05 | 0.29 | 0.59 | … |
| United Kingdom | 1.70 | 1.12 | 0.12 | 0.44 | 0.03 |
| Estonia | 1.50 | 0.69 | 0.16 | 0.62 | 0.03 |
| Hungary | 1.38 | 1.01 | 0.18 | 0.17 | … |
| Italy | 1.33 | 0.74 | 0.18 | 0.38 | 0.04 |
| Luxembourg | 1.31 | 0.67 | 0.41 | 0.23 | … |
| Portugal | 1.28 | 0.60 | 0.08 | 0.58 | 0.02 |
| Spain | 1.22 | 0.64 | 0.23 | 0.34 | 0.00 |
| Slovakia | 1.18 | 0.33 | 0.33 | 0.52 | 0.00 |
| Lithuania | 1.04 | 0.28 | 0.18 | 0.58 | … |
| Poland | 1.00 | 0.47 | 0.25 | 0.29 | 0.00 |
| Greece | 0.96 | 0.32 | 0.26 | 0.37 | 0.01 |
| Bulgaria | 0.96 | 0.70 | 0.20 | 0.05 | 0.01 |
| Croatia | 0.85 | 0.44 | 0.21 | 0.21 | … |
| Malta | 0.77 | 0.37 | 0.13 | 0.26 | 0.00 |
| Latvia | 0.63 | 0.15 | 0.16 | 0.31 | … |
| Romania | 0.49 | 0.21 | 0.19 | 0.09 | 0.00 |
| Cyprus | 0.46 | 0.08 | 0.06 | 0.24 | 0.07 |
| Ireland | … | … | 0.05 | 0.28 | … |
| Preliminary figures as published by Eurostat on 16.11.2016 | |||||
On the 16th of November Eurostat released preliminary figures for the European Union and EEA, with Iceland included. Those same results have now been published on the web site of Statistics Iceland.