Large enterprises’ share of R&D expenditure at 55% in 2015

Enterprises that employ 250 persons or more had the greatest share of R&D expenditure in 2015 with 55% of all actual expenditure, this accounted for €1.2bn of the total spend. Small enterprises with less than 50 persons engaged spent almost €502m on R&D in 2015 which accounted for over 22% of the spend. Medium sized enterprises employing between 50 and 249 persons spent just over €503m in the same period which represented 23% of total spend.  

The breakdown of R&D expenditure in 2016 by employment size class shows a similar distribution to 2015, with small enterprises estimating that they would spend approximately €580m. Medium enterprises forecast a spend of €522m. Large enterprises estimated they would spend nearly €1.2bn in 2016.  See Figure 2 and Table 1.

Labour Costs account for 61% of all R&D expenditure

In 2015, enterprises reported that over €1.3bn was spent on labour costs, which accounted for 61% of all R&D expenditure. Other current costs, which include materials, supplies, equipment and overheads associated with R&D, had a spend of nearly €726m which accounted for 33% of total expenditure. The remaining expenditure of €157m was accounted for by capital expenditure with just over 53% of capital expenditure being spent on Instruments and Equipment wholly acquired for R&D purposes. See Figure 3 and Tables 2 and 3.

Two-thirds of R&D expenditure is by Foreign owned enterprises

Foreign owned enterprises accounted for 64% of all R&D expenditure, with just over €1.3bn being spent on current expenditure, which represented 93% of all their R&D expenditure. The remaining 7% or €98m was spent on capital expenditure. Irish owned enterprises in comparison spent over €800m on R&D, with current expenditure at €751m accounting for nearly 93% of this expenditure. The remaining 7% or €59m was spent on capital expenditure. See Figure 4 and Table 1.

The largest 100 enterprises in terms of R&D spend accounted for over €1.6bn, or 73%, of the total R&D expenditure in 2015. Of these top 100 enterprises, 76% of the spend can be attributed to foreign owned enterprises. The spend of enterprises outside the Top 100 amounted to over €608m. Of this spend, €184m, or 30%, can be attributed to foreign owned enterprises, with Irish owned enterprises accounting for almost €424m, or 70%, of the spend.

Services sector accounted for 61% of total R&D expenditure

R&D spending was highest in the Services sector, accounting for 61% of all expenditure. Spending in this sector was nearly €1.4bn in 2015, while the Manufacturing sector spent over €876m on R&D. For the purposes of this survey it should be noted that spending in the Services sector includes the spend from all other non-Manufacturing sectors. The value of this contribution to the Services sector total is not significant.  

Service sector enterprises reported that labour costs accounted for 74% of their current expenditure, while Manufacturing enterprises stated that 51% of their current expenditure was related to labour costs. In terms of capital expenditure, Manufacturing enterprises spent nearly €71m which represents 45% of all capital expenditure on R&D.  See Figure 5 and Tables 2 and 3.  

Southern and Eastern region account for over 80% of all R&D expenditure

Total R&D spending in the Southern and Eastern region (SE) region was in excess of €1.8bn in 2015 which accounted for 83% of all R&D expenditure. The remainder of all R&D expenditure (17%), which accounted for €384m of the total spend, was spent in the Border, Midland and Western (BMW) region. 93% of all R&D spending in the SE region can be attributed to current expenditure, while the corresponding figure for the BMW region was 92%.  See Figure 6 and Table 1.

Researchers account for 54% of all R&D staff 

Enterprises were asked to indicate the numbers of staff who devoted any of their time to R&D activities. R&D personnel includes researchers (PhD qualified and others), technicians and other support staff. In total, there were 26,336 persons engaged in R&D in Ireland in 2015. Of this total, 54% or 14,174 persons were employed as researchers, of which 2,162 were PhD qualified researchers. In addition, there were 6,942 technicians which accounted for 26% of all staff, with the remaining 20% of R&D personnel accounted for by 5,221 support staff.  See Figure 9 and Table 4.

Small enterprises account for 71% of R&D active enterprises yet only 1% of small enterprises engage in R&D

In 2015, over 1,300 small enterprises were engaged in R&D. They accounted for 71% of all R&D active enterprises, compared with 386 medium enterprises which accounted for 21% of R&D active enterprises, and 166 large enterprises which accounted for 9% of all R&D active enterprises.

Most recent figures available from the CSO report Business In Ireland 2014 indicates that there are 514 enterprises in Ireland classified as large. Of these 514 enterprises, 32% or 166 large enterprises, consider themselves as being R&D active. In contrast, there are over 2,600 enterprises classified as medium size enterprises in Ireland, with under 15% or 386 of these medium considered to be R&D active. There are over 235,000 enterprises in Ireland classified as small enterprises. 1,323 small enterprises considered themselves to be R&D active. This accounts for less than 1% of all small enterprises. The vast majority ,97%, of small enterprises spent less than €2m on R&D activities compared to 82% of medium size enterprises and 54% of large enterprises.  See Figures 13 and 14.