research and development in the european union

In the aftermath of the economic crisis, measures have been taken in order to set the paths towards a sustainable growth in the European Union. One of these measures was objectified through Europe 2020 Strategy that was meant to ensure a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The smart growth was expected to be achieved through improvements in research and development, innovation and education. In this paper we decided to address Europe’s smart growth, taking into consideration one of its main pillars: research and development. We have taken into consideration data for the 28 European Union member states and applied a comparative analysis of the dynamics of research and development expenditures for the last ten years, analyzing data from Eurostat database. Our results highlighted the increasing interest in the research and development activities in the last years. For a better understanding of the dynamics, we analyzed also the structure of the R&D expenditure, by the following four institutional sectors: business enterprise, government, higher education, private non-profit with the total of sectors. In most of the European Union member states the main sector of performance in R&D expenditures is the business sector, followed by higher education sector. However, this is not the cases in all countries, some of them having a different structure in this respect. In some countries, as Latvia and Lithuania, the higher education sector is the main funder of R&D activities, while in other countries, as Romania, R&D activities are conducting with the support of both private and public funding, in almost equal contribution. However, despite the differences in structure, the general trend is of increasing R&D funding, highlighting the increasing interest for innovation and more knowledge intensive outcomes. Even if progress has been registered, in most European Union member states efforts should be made in order to support R&D activities, as to meet the Europe 2020 target, but primarily for boosting innovation.