Large enterprises accounted for two thirds of R&D expenditure in 2019

Large enterprises which employed 250 persons or more had the greatest share of R&D expenditure in 2019 with 66.1% of all expenditure, accounting for €2.15bn of the total spend. This was an increase of 23.0% or €402.5m on their 2017 spend.

Small enterprises with less than 50 persons engaged spent over €465.1m on R&D in 2019 which accounted for over 14.3% of the overall spend.

Medium sized enterprises employing between 50 and 249 persons spent €637.8m in the same period which represented 19.6% of total spend. See Figure 2 and Table 1.

Labour costs accounted for over half of all R&D expenditure

In 2019, enterprises reported that almost €1.7bn was spent on labour costs, which accounted for 51.9% of all R&D expenditure. Other current costs, which include materials, supplies, equipment and overheads associated with R&D, had a spend of just over €1.0bn which accounted for 31.0% of total expenditure. The remaining expenditure of €555.7m (17.1%) was accounted for by capital expenditure, with 36.9% of capital expenditure being spent on software developed in-house for R&D purposes. See Figure 3 and Tables 2 & 3.

70% of total R&D expenditure was by Foreign-owned enterprises

Foreign-owned enterprises accounted for 70.4% of all R&D expenditure, with just under €2.0bn being spent on current expenditure, which represented 86.1% of all their R&D expenditure. The remaining 13.9% or €317.7m was spent on capital expenditure.

In comparison, Irish-owned enterprises spent almost €963.0m on R&D, with current expenditure at €725.0m accounting for 75.3% of this. The remaining 24.7% or €238.0m was spent on capital expenditure. See Figure 4a and Table 1.

In terms of R&D spend, the largest 100 enterprises accounted for almost €2.7bn, or 81.8%, of the total R&D expenditure in 2019. Of these top 100 enterprises, 78.1% of the spend can be attributed to foreign-owned enterprises. The spend of enterprises outside the Top 100 amounted to €594.1m. Of this spend, €214.5m, or 36.1%, can be attributed to foreign -owned enterprises, with Irish owned enterprises accounting for €379.6m, or 63.9%, of the spend. See Figure 4b and Table 5.

Services sector had the highest total R&D expenditure in 2019

R&D spending was highest in the Services sector, accounting for 61.0% of all expenditure. In 2019, €2.0bn was spent in this sector, while the Manufacturing sector spent €1.3bn on R&D. For the purposes of this survey it should be noted that spending in the Services sector includes the spend from all other non-Manufacturing sectors. The value of this contribution to the Services sector total is not significant. See Table 1.

Services sector enterprises reported that labour costs accounted for 70.9% of their current expenditure, while Manufacturing enterprises stated that 48.7% of their current expenditure was related to labour costs. In terms of capital expenditure, Manufacturing enterprises spent €256.6m which represents 46.2% of all capital expenditure on R&D. See Figure 5 and Tables 2 & 3.  

Three in five of all R&D staff were employed in research

Enterprises were asked to indicate the numbers of staff who devoted any of their time to R&D activities. R&D personnel includes researchers (PhD qualified and others), technicians and other support staff.

In total, there were 27,755 persons engaged in R&D in Ireland in 2019. Of this total, 59.8% or 16,609 persons were employed as researchers, of which 1,966 were PhD qualified researchers. In addition, there were 6,832 (24.6%) technicians and 4,313 (15.5%) support staff. See Figure 9 and Table 4.

Large enterprises employed 45% of all R&D personnel

In 2019, the number of R&D personnel engaged in small enterprises was 7,995 which accounted for 28.8% of all R&D personnel. Medium sized enterprises had 7,164 persons engaged which accounted for 25.8% of all R&D personnel, while 12,596 or 45.4% of R&D staff were engaged in large enterprises.

In relation to PhD qualified researchers, small enterprises employed 724 which equates to 36.8% of all PhD qualified researchers employed in R&D. Large enterprises accounted for 41.7% with 820 persons employed as PhD researchers. Over one in five (21.5%) PhD qualified researchers or 422 persons were employed in medium sized enterprises.

11,800 R&D staff were engaged in Irish-owned enterprises, while 15,955 R&D staff were engaged in foreign-owned enterprises. There were more R&D staff engaged in the Services sector (66.5%) than in the Manufacturing sector (33.5%).

18,007 people were engaged as R&D staff in the Eastern & Midland (EM) region in 2019 compared to 6,242 in the Southern region and 3,506 in the Northern & Western (NW) region. The Eastern & Midland (EM) region accounted for 64.9% of all R&D staff. See Figure 10 and Table 4.

Almost 1,800 enterprises engaged in R&D activities in Ireland in 2019

R&D active enterprises are those enterprises who reported they either performed in-house R&D, had R&D performed on their behalf, or controlled branches engaged in R&D activity. There were almost 1,800 enterprises engaged in R&D activities in Ireland in 2019. 69.3% of these enterprises spent less than €500,000 on R&D activities. 17.3% had a spend in the €500,000 - €1.99m category, while 13.4% of enterprises spent €2m or more on R&D activities. See Figure 12 and Table 8.

Almost seven in ten R&D active enterprises were small enterprises

In 2019, over 1,200 small enterprises were engaged in R&D. These accounted for 69.1% of all R&D active enterprises, compared with 371 medium enterprises which accounted for 20.6%. Large enterprises accounted for the remaining 10.3% of all R&D active enterprises with 185 enterprises in this size class. See Figure 13 and Table 8.