Domestic spending on research and development as a share of GDP for the G20, 1996–2018 (%)

Press play to watch the values change over time. You can pause or move the scroll bar to a specific year. The country bars will take some time to move to their final position after a year is selected. The bracket indicates the period of focus (2015–2018) of the 2021 edition of the UNESCO Science Report.

G20 countries dominate global research spending

The G20 countries still account for nine-tenths of research expenditure, researchers, publications and patents. Even among the G20, there are strong differences. Different levels of investment can influence trends in publishing, patenting and researcher density.

Throughout the report, you can read about national goals for science policy and targets for research spending. .

Source: UNESCO Science Report: the Race Against Time for Smarter Development (2021), data sourced from UNESCO Institute for Statistics and animated by Values Associates