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3.6R&D personnel in the public sector
By Peter Viaene (WEWIS).
Over the past five years, the number of research staff has increased both in companies and in the public sector. The public sector groups together all research institutes from the higher education sector (HES), the government sector (GOV), and the private not-for-profit sector (PNP). The majority of the R&D personnel (64.98) work in the private sector (BES). The overall share of the public component (PNP, HES, and GOV) declined between 2013 and 2019 and stays rather stable since 2020. The HES component is the most important element of the public component (with 17,675 FTE or 71.2%) in 2023, followed by the GOV component (6,588 FTE or 26.5%).
The R&D staff within the non-profit organisations (public sector) counted 24,830 full-time equivalents in 2023. This number corresponds with 40,836 headcount, of which more than 29,860 researchers and 10,975 technical and other personnel. The breakdown of R&D staff by gender shows that 19,570 women and 21,265 men are working on R&D activities in the public sector. Approx. one in three of the R&D personnel in the public sector has obtained a PhD (12,000 headcount).
The R&D personnel in the GOV and HES can be broken down by different fields of science. For the GOV sector, this indicates the dominant position of engineering and technology. For the HES sector, the most important fields of science are the medical sciences, engineering, the natural sciences, and social sciences.
About 82% of the R&D personnel working on R&D activities in the HES in Flanders are researchers. This number is high compared to the other European countries and much higher than the EU27 average, but lower than Sweden. Approximately 75% of the R&D personnel in the GOV in Flanders are also researchers. Once again, this number is higher than for France, Germany, and the EU27 average, but equal to Denmark and lower than Finland.
With a number of 45.1% for female researchers working in the higher education (HES), Flanders again compares favourably with neighbouring countries (Germany and France), but the Scandinavian countries show similar or higher numbers here. For female staff working in public research centres (GOV), Flanders scores below both the neighbouring and Scandinavian countries.
Figure 1. International comparison of the share of female researchers in GOV and HES (in headcount)
* Austria, Japan, Belgium, Germany (GOV), and The Netherlands (GOV): different definition; The Netherlands: break in time series; Denmark: provisional numbers
Source: OECD database, Main Science and Technology Indicators.