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Key Findings

Enterprises in Ireland spent €7 billion on Research & Development in 2023

Online ISSN: 2009-8405
CSO statistical release, , 11am

Key Findings

  • Research & Development (R&D) expenditure in Ireland in 2023 was €7.0bn, which was 81% higher when compared with 2021 (€3.9bn).

  • Current expenditure accounted for 66% (€4.6bn) of all R&D expenditure in 2023.

  • Capital expenditure accounted for the remaining 34% (€2.4bn) of total R&D expenditure in 2023.

  • Foreign-owned enterprises spent €5.9bn on R&D in 2023, accounting for 84% of all R&D expenditure.

  • Irish-owned enterprises accounted for 16% or €1.1bn of total R&D expenditure in 2023.

  • In 2023, the top 10 enterprises accounted for 58% or €4.0bn of total R&D expenditure, compared with 37% in 2021.

  • There were 40,956 people employed in R&D in Ireland in 2023, of which 50% or 20,334 people were employed as researchers.

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (28 April 2025) published Business Expenditure on Research and Development 2023 (Final) - 2024 (Preliminary).

Commenting on the release, Devin Zibulsky, Statistician in the Sustainability and Circular Economy Division, said: “This release measures the Research & Development (R&D) activities of enterprises in Ireland including expenditure, personnel, and sources of funding. Measuring R&D activity allows for viewing changes over time, international comparisons, and evaluating the social and economic impact of R&D.

In 2023, enterprises in Ireland reported R&D expenditure of €7.0bn, which was an increase of 81% from €3.9bn in 2021. The BERD survey is conducted every second year, which means the 2023 data in this release is compared with the previous survey results from 2021. Please note that data for the intervening years of 2022 and 2024 is estimated. Current expenditure accounted for 66% (€4.6bn) of all R&D expenditure in 2023, while capital expenditure made up the remaining 34% (€2.4bn). Labour costs were the largest component of R&D expenditure, rising to €2.6bn in 2023 from €2.0bn in 2021.

Large enterprises, those with 250 or more people employed, accounted for 77% or €5.4bn of R&D expenditure in 2023, with Irish-owned enterprises accounting for 16% or €1.1bn of total R&D expenditure. Foreign-owned enterprises spent €5.9bn on R&D in 2023, accounting for 84% of all R&D expenditure. In 2023, the top 10 enterprises accounted for 58% or €4.0bn of total R&D expenditure, compared with 37% in 2021. In 2023, there were 40,956 R&D staff employed in Ireland, and nearly half were employed as researchers."

Key Figures

Business Expenditure on Research and Development, 2021-20241€'000
 20212022220232024
Current Expenditure 3,438,9544,586,2024,591,9524,704,210
Capital Expenditure 440,0532,408,7722,411,7921,885,354
Total Expenditure33,879,0076,994,9757,003,7456,589,565
          of which; Irish Spend 1,177,2961,143,6971,132,2471,012,941
                         Foreign Spend 2,701,7115,851,2785,871,4985,576,624
Source: CSO Ireland
1Expenditure for 2021 and 2023 actual. Expenditure for 2022 and 2024 estimated.
2Figure revised from preliminary to final.
3Totals may differ due to rounding.

Total Research & Development (R&D) expenditure was €7 billion in 2023

Results from the 2023-2024 Business Expenditure on Research and Development (BERD) survey show that €7bn was spent on R&D activities by enterprises in Ireland in 2023.

Total R&D expenditure
(Estimated expenditure) 20246.59
(Actual expenditure) 20237
(Estimated expenditure) 20226.99
(Actual expenditure) 20213.88
(Estimated expenditure) 20203.39
(Actual expenditure) 20193.26
Table 1a Actual total R&D expenditure, 2019, 2021 and 2023
Table 1b Estimated total R&D expenditure, 2020, 2022 and 2024

Greatest share of R&D expenditure was in large enterprises

Large enterprises (250+ persons engaged) had the greatest share of R&D expenditure in 2023, accounting for 77.1% (€5.4bn) of all expenditure. This was an increase of 122% or €3.0bn compared with 2021.

Medium sized enterprises (50-249 persons engaged) spent €880.4m on R&D in 2023, representing 12.6% of total R&D expenditure.

Small enterprises (<50 persons engaged) had a spend of €723.3m in 2023, accounting for 10.3% of all R&D expenditure.

Figure 2 Share of total R&D expenditure by enterprise size class, 2023
Table 2 Actual total expenditure on research and development by size of enterprise, 2019, 2021, and 2023

Labour costs accounted for more than one-third of all R&D expenditure

Enterprises reported a spend of €2.6bn on labour costs in 2023, accounting for 37.4% of all R&D expenditure. Other current costs accounted for 28.2% (€2.0bn) of total expenditure. Capital expenditure accounted for the remaining €2.4bn or 34.4% of total R&D spend.

Figure 3 Share of actual total R&D expenditure by category of spend, 2023
Table 3 Share of actual total R&D expenditure by type of expenditure, 2019, 2021, and 2023

Foreign-owned enterprises accounted for 84% of total R&D expenditure.

Foreign-owned enterprises spent €5.9bn on R&D in 2023, accounting for 83.8% of all R&D expenditure. In comparison, Irish-owned enterprises spent more than €1.1bn on R&D, accounting for 16.2% of all R&D expenditure. 

Figure 4 Share of total R&D expenditure by nationality of ownership, 2023
Table 4 Share of actual total R&D expenditure, 2019, 2021, and 2023

Top 10 enterprises accounted for 58% of total R&D expenditure

In 2023, the top 10 enterprises accounted for 57.8% or €4.0bn of total R&D expenditure. In 2021, the top 10 enterprises accounted for 37.4% or €1.5bn of total R&D expenditure, compared with 40.7% in 2019. Excluding the top 10 enterprises, R&D expenditure amounted to €3.0bn or 42.2% of total R&D expenditure in 2023.

Figure 5 Actual total R&D expenditure by top 10 enterprises, 2019, 2021, and 2023
Table 5 Contribution of Top 10 enterprises to total R&D expenditure, 2019, 2021, and 2023

Manufacturing sector accounted for more than half of all R&D expenditure.

In 2023, the Manufacturing sector, at €3.6bn, accounted for more than half (51.3%) of all R&D spending. Services (other sectors excluding Manufacturing) accounted for the remaining 48.7% (€3.4bn). For the purposes of this survey, it should be noted that spending in Services includes the spend from all other non-Manufacturing sectors.

Figure 6 Share of total R&D expenditure by sector of activity, 2023
Table 6 Actual total R&D expenditure by sector of activity, 2019, 2021, and 2023

More than four-fifths of all R&D spending was in the Eastern & Midland region

Regional R&D data for Ireland has been produced using the location of each enterprise’s registered head office to determine the region. See Information Note for further details.

Total R&D spending in the Eastern & Midland region amounted to €5.8bn in 2023, accounting for 82.8% of all R&D expenditure. The Southern region (€745.3m or 10.6%) and the Northern & Western region (€459.1m or 6.6%) accounted for the remainder.

Map 1 Share of total R&D expenditure by region (€'000), 2023
Table 7 Actual total R&D expenditure by region, 2019, 2021, and 2023

More than 95% of all R&D expenditure funded by own company or internal funds

Enterprises reported that 95.3% of all R&D expenditure was funded by the enterprise itself or internal funds, while the remaining 4.7% of expenditure was funded by public funding at 2.4% and all other sources at 2.3%. The lowest proportion of internal funding (86.6%) occurred in small enterprises, compared with 91.1% in medium enterprises and 97.1% in large enterprises.

Figure 7 Source of funds for R&D expenditure by enterprise size class, 2023
Table 8 Source of funds for R&D expenditure by enterprise size class, 2023

Ireland ranked 10th in the EU27 in terms of R&D intensity in 2023

The BERD survey is carried out in all EU member states. The most recent data available from Eurostat is taken from the 2023-2024 survey and allows comparisons across the EU. Please note that these figures are provisional for most of the participating countries. R&D intensity for a country is defined as the R&D expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

In 2023, the R&D intensity rate for Ireland (1.37%) was below the EU27 average of 1.47%. Ireland ranked 10th in the EU27 in 2023, compared with a ranking of 15th in 2021 and 13th in 2019.

Percentage
Sweden2.65
Belgium2.46
Austria2.27
Germany2.12
Finland2.09
Denmark1.83
Slovenia1.47
EU271.47
Netherlands1.44
France1.44
Ireland1.37
Czechia1.19
Portugal1.06
Estonia1.06
Hungary1.01
Poland1.01
Spain0.84
Italy0.76
Croatia0.76
Greece0.74
Slovakia0.58
Bulgaria0.51
Luxembourg0.48
Lithuania0.44
Malta0.34
Romania0.32
Latvia0.3
Cyprus0.28
Table 9 R&D intensity (R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP) for EU27, 2019, 2021, and 2023

Almost half of all R&D staff were employed in research

R&D personnel consists of researchers (PhD qualified and others), technicians and other support staff.

In 2023, there were 40,956 persons engaged in R&D in Ireland. Of this total, 49.6% or 20,334 persons were employed as researchers, of which 2,582 were PhD qualified researchers. In addition, there were 12,740 (31.1%) technicians and 7,882 (19.2%) support staff.

The number of R&D personnel engaged in small enterprises in 2023 was 11,084, accounting for 27.1% of all R&D personnel. Medium enterprises had 8,335 persons engaged, accounting for 20.4% of all R&D personnel, compared with 21,537 persons or 52.6% of R&D personnel engaged in large enterprises.

Large enterprises employed 1,088 persons or 42.1% of all PhD qualified researchers employed in R&D. This compares with 1,078 persons or 41.8% in small enterprises and 416 persons or 16.1% in medium enterprises.

Almost four in ten (37.2%) R&D staff were engaged in Irish-owned enterprises compared with 62.8% in foreign-owned enterprises. More R&D staff were engaged in Services (65.6%) than in Manufacturing (34.4%).

The Eastern & Midland region accounted for seven in ten (69.6%) of R&D staff in 2023 with 28,486 persons engaged. This compares with 7,640 (18.7%) persons engaged in the Southern region and 4,830 (11.8%) persons engaged in the Northern & Western region.

Figure 9 Number of research personnel by type of researcher and enterprise size class, 2023
Table 10a Number of research personnel by type of researcher and enterprise size class, 2023
Table 10b Number of research personnel by type of researcher and nationality of ownership, 2023
Table 10c Number of research personnel by type of researcher and sector of activity, 2023
Table 10d Number of research personnel by type of researcher and region, 2023

Females accounted for more than a quarter of all R&D staff

In 2023, female R&D personnel accounted for 28.2% (11,565) of all R&D staff. More than half (50.6%) of female R&D personnel were employed as researchers, followed by 25.7% (2,976) employed as technicians and 23.7% (2,741) employed as support staff.

There were 29,392 males employed in R&D in 2023, with 49.3% (14,486) of these employed as researchers, 33.2% (9,764) employed as technicians, and the remaining 17.5% (5,142) employed as support staff.

Figure 10 Male and Female breakdown of R&D personnel, 2023
Table 11 Number of R&D personnel by sex and type of researcher, 2023

In 2023, 2,351 enterprises engaged in R&D activities in Ireland in 2023

R&D enterprises are those enterprises which reported that they either performed in-house R&D, had R&D performed on their behalf, or controlled branches engaged in R&D activity.

There were 2,351 enterprises engaged in R&D activities in Ireland in 2023, of which almost two-thirds (66.1%) spent less than €500,000 on R&D activities. Almost one in five (19.3%) enterprises had a spend in the €500,000 - €1,999,999 category, while 14.6% spent €2,000,000 or more.

Figure 11 Share of enterprises engaged in R&D activities by size of spend, 2023
Table 12 Percentage of enterprises engaged in R&D activities by size of spend, 2019, 2021, and 2023

Small enterprises accounted for more than two-thirds of all R&D enterprises

In 2023, of the 2,351 enterprises engaged in R&D activities in Ireland, 1,622 (69.0%) were small enterprises, 508 (21.6%) were medium enterprises, and 221 (9.4%) were large enterprises.

Figure 12 Number of R&D enterprises by size class, 2023
Table 13 Number of R&D enterprises by size class, 2019, 2021, and 2023

More than 85% of R&D active enterprises spent less than €2 million on R&D

In 2023, more than eight in ten (85.5%) of R&D active firms spent less than €2m on R&D. Small firms had by far the largest share (81.6%) of total R&D spend in the €0 - €99,999 category and also had the largest share in the €100,000 - €499,999 (77.1%) and €500,000 - €1,999,999 (61.3%) categories.

Large firms had the largest share (69.0%) of R&D spend in the €5m and over category in 2023.

Figure 13 Number of enterprises with R&D activities by size of spend on R&D and size class, 2023

Totals may differ due to rounding.

Table 14 Number of enterprises with R&D activities by size of spend on R&D and size class, 2023

More than seven in ten R&D enterprises were Irish-owned

In 2023, there were 1,706 (72.6%) Irish-owned enterprises engaged in R&D activities, compared with 645 (27.4%) foreign-owned enterprises. The majority of Irish-owned enterprises (76.7% or 1,309) spent less than €500,000 on R&D, compared with 38.1% or 246 foreign-owned enterprises.

Figure 14 Number of enterprises with R&D activities by size of spend on R&D and nationality of ownership, 2023
Table 15 Number of enterprises with R&D activities by size of spend on R&D and nationality of ownership, 2023

More than one-third of enterprises had a spend of €0 - €99,999 on R&D activities

In 2023, 817 or 34.8% of all enterprises engaged in R&D activities had a spend of €0 - €99,999 on R&D. This was closely followed by 31.4% (738 enterprises) which had a spend of €100,000 - €499,999 on R&D activities.

In Services, the largest number of enterprises was in the R&D spend category €100,000 - €499,999 with 529 firms or 32.9%. In Manufacturing, the largest number of enterprises was in the R&D spend category €0 - €99,999 (320 enterprises or 43.0%).

Figure 15 Number of enterprises with R&D activities by size of spend on R&D and sector of activity, 2023
Table 16 Number of enterprises with R&D activities by size of spend on R&D and sector of activity, 2023

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