Lithuania's R&D spending grows to 0.79 percent of GDP

R&D expenditure in the two sectors accounted for 0.68 percent of GDP last year, up from 0.56 percent the previous year, Statistics Lithuania said.

Some 49.9 percent of the expenditure went for fundamental research, 28.3 percent for applied research, and 11.9 percent for experimental development.

By fields of science, the biggest slice went to technological sciences, at 168.7 million litas, or 23.4 percent of the total R&D spending, and to biomedical sciences, at 158.9 million litas, or 22.1 percent, while agricultural sciences received the smallest share, 41.5 million litas.

Some 56.6 percent of the total R&D expenditure, or 407.3 million litas, was funded from the state budget, 30.2 percent, or 217.5 million litas, from foreign funds, 11.8 percent, or 85 million litas, by business companies, and 1.4 percent by higher education and non-profit institutions. The EU's structural funds accounted for 70.8 percent of the foreign funds.