Science and technology

The approximately 500 tables, graphs and maps and tens of thousands of data the Statistical Yearbook of Hungary contains give, for almost one and a half century, an overview of the social and economic processes of the country in the given year. Besides paying attention to the ever changing socio-economic environment and user demands we always strive to share new information: the health chapter broadened this year with indices regarding outpatient care, time series of healthcare expenses, life expectancy in good health and the number of Covid19 infected people.

1.61% of GDP was spent on R&D on a national scale in 2020. This activity is quite concentrated from a territorial angle: the highest expenditure as a proportion of GDP was recorded for Veszprém County, having a relatively substantial industrial base, as well as the capital, featuring a wide range of innovative economic activities and outstandingly significant tertiary education. Besides, this indicator exceeded the national average in two more counties (Csongrád-Csanád and Hajdú-Bihar Counties), home to considerable universities.

Research and development expenditures continued to grow in 2020, first of all due to foreign and enterprise resources. The growth rate (9.0%) surpassed that of the GDP calculated at current prices (0.5%), in consequence the expenditure to GDP ratio (1.6%) reached the highest value of the last 30 years. The number of research locations diminished in one year, at the same time the proportion of researchers in relation to total emloyees continued to increase.

In 2017, HUF 517 billion, 1.35% of GDP was spent on research and development activities at the level of the national economy. Nearly 74% of research and development expenditure came from the activities of business enterprises at the level of the national economy, R&D units in higher education as well as R&D institutes and other budgetary research units accounted for 13% each. The significant part of tender resources of 2016 were used in 2017, as a result of which R&D expenditure financed from the government budget rose to the highest extent, by nearly HUF 53 billion (by 47%) at current prices. R&D expenditure financed by the sources of business enterprises rose by HUF 31 billion (by 13%). Out of the financial sources of R&D expenditure only the amount of funds from non-profit organisations that decreased, by 10.5% over a year.