Independent rankings built from public data — every figure traceable to the body that published it.
Report year 2015Data year 2015
Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (% of GDP)Higher is better — rank 1 leadsPublished by UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
28 editions (1996–2023), 52 to 102 countries. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP, counting business, government, higher education and non-profit spending together. The standard measure of how much of an economy is aimed at producing new knowledge, and SDG indicator 9.5.1. ⚠ It counts money in, not discoveries out — Israel leads 2023 at 6.35%, which says what the country spends and nothing about what it found. ⚠ Editions reporting fewer than 50 countries are not written — that drops UIS’s trailing stub year, which opens with a handful of early reporters, and any thin historical year. ⚠ UIS ranks nobody, so no rank is stored; the POSITION on the statistics page is derived here by ordering the score and labelled as ours.
Research and Development Spending 2015 — UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
Cite as: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UIS Data Browser. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
UIS release 20260507-91260335. Read from the UIS API at full precision, as published — nothing is rounded here. ⚠ Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, so anything derived from it carries the same ShareAlike obligation. UIS publishes no rank, so none is stored and none is derived here.
102 rows × 3 columns · imported from the publisher’s published data file on
Select any column heading to sort by it; select it again to reverse.
| Country | ISO Code | Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (% of GDP) |
|---|---|---|
| Israel | ISR | 4.2976 |
| South Korea | KOR | 3.7891 |
| Sweden | SWE | 3.2409 |
| Japan | JPN | 3.2407 |
| Austria | AUT | 3.0692 |
| Denmark | DNK | 3.0642 |
| Switzerland | CHE | 3.0458 |
| Finland | FIN | 2.8883 |
| Germany | DEU | 2.8773 |
| United States | USA | 2.7733 |
| Belgium | BEL | 2.4350 |
| United Kingdom | GBR | 2.2757 |
| France | FRA | 2.2240 |
| Slovenia | SVN | 2.2161 |
| Iceland | ISL | 2.1814 |
| Singapore | SGP | 2.1745 |
| Netherlands | NLD | 2.1179 |
| China | CHN | 2.0170 |
| Norway | NOR | 1.9235 |
| Australia | AUS | 1.9197 |
| Czechia | CZE | 1.9060 |
| Canada | CAN | 1.6936 |
| Estonia | EST | 1.4413 |
| Hungary | HUN | 1.3388 |
| Italy | ITA | 1.3321 |
| Brazil | BRA | 1.2846 |
| Malaysia | MYS | 1.2795 |
| Luxembourg | LUX | 1.2523 |
| Portugal | PRT | 1.2455 |
| New Zealand | NZL | 1.2271 |
| Spain | ESP | 1.2117 |
| Slovakia | SVK | 1.1537 |
| Ireland | IRL | 1.1406 |
| Russia | RUS | 1.1009 |
| Lithuania | LTU | 1.0408 |
| Poland | POL | 0.9981 |
| Greece | GRC | 0.9716 |
| Türkiye | TUR | 0.9673 |
| Bulgaria | BGR | 0.9495 |
| United Arab Emirates | ARE | 0.8657 |
| Croatia | HRV | 0.8239 |
| Serbia | SRB | 0.7787 |
| Hong Kong | HKG | 0.7618 |
| South Africa | ZAF | 0.7315 |
| Egypt | EGY | 0.7186 |
| Malta | MLT | 0.6994 |
| India | IND | 0.6931 |
| Latvia | LVA | 0.6410 |
| Argentina | ARG | 0.6226 |
| Thailand | THA | 0.6161 |
| Ukraine | UKR | 0.6148 |
| Tunisia | TUN | 0.5941 |
| Senegal | SEN | 0.5772 |
| Qatar | QAT | 0.5188 |
| Belarus | BLR | 0.5000 |
| Romania | ROU | 0.4880 |
| Cyprus | CYP | 0.4753 |
| North Macedonia | MKD | 0.4441 |
| Costa Rica | CRI | 0.4367 |
| Puerto Rico | PRI | 0.4288 |
| Cuba | CUB | 0.4285 |
| Mexico | MEX | 0.4148 |
| DR Congo | COD | 0.4064 |
| Iran | IRN | 0.3938 |
| Chile | CHL | 0.3830 |
| Montenegro | MNE | 0.3740 |
| Colombia | COL | 0.3654 |
| Vietnam | VNM | 0.3563 |
| Uruguay | URY | 0.3511 |
| Mozambique | MOZ | 0.3081 |
| Moldova | MDA | 0.3074 |
| Georgia | GEO | 0.2940 |
| Eswatini | SWZ | 0.2781 |
| Mali | MLI | 0.2646 |
| Armenia | ARM | 0.2500 |
| Azerbaijan | AZE | 0.2223 |
| Pakistan | PAK | 0.2219 |
| Oman | OMN | 0.2187 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | BIH | 0.2160 |
| Bermuda | BMU | 0.1951 |
| Kazakhstan | KAZ | 0.1695 |
| Uzbekistan | UZB | 0.1650 |
| Philippines | PHL | 0.1568 |
| Mongolia | MNG | 0.1564 |
| El Salvador | SLV | 0.1435 |
| Macau | MAC | 0.1365 |
| Kyrgyzstan | KGZ | 0.1190 |
| Peru | PER | 0.1170 |
| Turkmenistan | TKM | 0.1100 |
| Nicaragua | NIC | 0.1074 |
| Panama | PAN | 0.1042 |
| Tajikistan | TJK | 0.1034 |
| Sri Lanka | LKA | 0.1029 |
| Paraguay | PRY | 0.0967 |
| Kuwait | KWT | 0.0966 |
| Cambodia | KHM | 0.0883 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | TTO | 0.0805 |
| Lesotho | LSO | 0.0510 |
| Iraq | IRQ | 0.0402 |
| Guatemala | GTM | 0.0306 |
| Syria | SYR | 0.0194 |
| Honduras | HND | 0.0150 |