27 gross domestic expenditure on research and development

In 2012, half of intramural business enterprise expenditure on R&D (BERD) was focused on six of the 32 industrial branches that benefit from R&D (‘Manufacture of motor vehicles’, ‘Manufacture of air and spacecraft and related machinery’, ‘Manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations’, ‘Computer-related and information service activities’, ‘Professional, scientific and technical activities’ and ‘Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products’). In the public sector, dedicated research institutions (EPST and EPIC) carried out 55% of all R&D funded by intramural government expenditure on R&D (GOVERD).

In 2012, BERD totalled €30.1 billion, while GOVERD was €16.5 billion. The increase in gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) in comparison with 2011 was due in large part to increased business expenditure (3.0% in real terms), while government expenditure remained stable (0.1% in real terms) (table 27.01). In 2013, this growth in GERD is expected to slow (0.5% in real terms) due to a smaller increase in BERD (0.8%) and a virtual stagnation in GOVERD (0.1%).

The breakdown of BERD among the main fields of research reveals a marked concentration (table 27.02). Six of the 32 research areas receive half of France’s R&D resources: ‘manufacture of motor vehicles’ (15% of BERD); ‘manufacture of air and spacecraft and related machinery’ (11%); ‘manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations’ (10%); ‘computer-related and information service activities’ (7%); ‘professional, scientific and technical activities’ (6%); and ‘manufacture of chemicals and chemical products’ (5%). In the space of around ten years, the ‘manufacture of motor vehicles’ field has become more dominant, primarily to the detriment of ‘manufacture of air and spacecraft and related machinery’ (which was France’s main R&D field up until 1997). Taken as a whole, research fields within the service sector received 20% of BERD (€6.1 billion). In the past 3 years, R&D expenditure in research fields within the service sector has shown significant growth, increasing by 11.7% a year on average in real terms, in comparison with a fall of 1.5% a year in real terms in industrial R&D expenditure.

In 2012, 65% of businesses in France carried out R&D, placing France ahead of the United Kingdom (63%) but far behind South Korea (78%), Japan (77%), the United States (70%) and Germany (68%) (chart 27.03). However, it should be noted when making comparisons with other countries that R&D by French businesses does not cover the country’s entire technological and industrial field. A considerable proportion of high-level technological R&D is carried out by dedicated state research institutions and foundations.

Public research is carried out by dedicated research institutions (accounting for 55% of GOVERD in 2012), higher education institutions (40%), the private non-profit sector (4%) and government departments and other state institutions (1%) (chart 27.04). In 2012, state-owned scientific and technological establishments (établissements publics à caractère scientifique et technologique – EPST) carried out 32% of GOVERD-funded R&D. They varied widely in size, from the multidisciplinary National Centre for Scientific Research (Centre national de la recherche scientifique – CNRS), which conducted 19% of GOVERD-funded R&D, to the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (Institut national de la recherche agronomique – INRA) and the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale – INSERM), both of which accounted for 5% of GOVERD. State-owned industrial and commercial establishments (établissements publics à caractère industriel et commercial – EPIC) were responsible for 23% of GOVERD-funded R&D. R&D was also highly concentrated among EPICs, with 14% of GOVERD going to the civil division of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives – CEA) and 3% to the French Government Space Agency (Centre national d’études spatiales – CNES), with the remaining EPICs accounting for 5% of GOVERD. Between 2011 and 2012, GERD fell in real terms among EPICs (-5.7%). However, R&D expenditure increased in real terms in the not-for-profit (+ 10.3%) and higher education (+ 2.6%) sectors, as well as, to a lesser extent, among EPSTs (+ 0.8%).

Catherine David