The pandemic came as a shock to R&D. His relevance to beating COVID became clear. And after the health crisis came the manna of European funds, which served precisely to increase research spending. A total of 697.4 million euros were invested in Galicia last year, almost 56 million more than in 2020, and universities were the place where the resources allocated to R&D increased the most: almost 12 percent. This is the highest growth in higher education in the last thirteen years.an impetus that raised university items for research to record numbers: €240 million.
“The increase in investment in R&D in 2021 should be seen as something exceptional and is closely linked to the European Next Generation EU funds, which are unequivocally allocated in 2021,” from the Cotec Innovation Foundation.
in universities The previous economic crisis in 2009 wreaked havoc with major cuts in R&D. Between 2010 and 2014, university-level research spending fell 13 percent. It started to recover gradually from 2017 onwards, but growth has been rather timid in recent years. Investment increased only 1.2 percent in 2019 and 2.3 percent in 2020.
But Next Generation funds, designed as an engine for post-pandemic economic recovery, arrived and universities began to receive more funding for R&D. There was another 26 million euros in 2021, representing an increase of almost 12 percent. In fact, according to statistics from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), and in the absence of the five communities that did not provide data, Galician universities were the ones that increased their research spending the most in the State last year.
also a higher than average growth of research in Galicia last year. R&D funds increased by 8.6 percent in the autonomous community as a whole.
While universities benefited most from innovation spending in 2021, more than half of the investment comes from the private sector, contributing 353.4m euros last year – 8.4 percent more than in 2020 – also supported by an injection of European funds. .
Meanwhile, research, directly promoted by public administrations outside universities, rose only 2 percent to 100.4m euros.
research staff
The higher budget for R&D has also allowed for an increase in the hiring of researchers. In Galicia there are 7,461 professionals appointed to these posts, which is 542 more than a year ago. most jobs in universities: 3,396, of which 273 participated last year. There are 932 people in the service of public administrations in Galician society and more than 3,000 employees in the private sector.
The growth of R&D has spread across Spanish territory, though not with the same intensity. For example, research items increased by 30 percent in Castilla y León and 19 percent in Extremadura.
Galicia ranks in the middle with an increase of 8.6 percent. ninth among the fastest growing communities.
So, is this R&D increase provided by the New Generation funds sufficient? R&D expenditure in Galicia in relation to GDP is 1.1 percent and is still below the national average of 1.4 percent. Xunta’s goal is to increase this to 2 percent of GDP by 2030, so there is still a long way to go.
Academic institutions claim to continue these investments in the future.
Galician universities warn despite 2021 being the first year of Next Generation funding They received even more funding in 2022 and warned that this funding will continue next year.. However, they fear that this extra resource contribution for research will come to an end, and therefore they demand that this economic effort be continued in the future.
“I wish these funds were protected, but I don’t think that’s the case. There will be significant support now, but it will be difficult to sustain it later”, explains Belén Rubio, Vice-Chancellor for Research, Transfer and Innovation, University of Vigo Asks Xunta and the Government to continue these funds in the future.
As it explains, they have joined calls for European funds, which they attracted more than 24 million in 2021, but warns they expect to increase to 41.5 million by 2022.
In the case of the University of Santiago (USC), they hope to benefit from this injection of European funding in 2023 with their Interreg call. Note that Next Generation covers the year 2025/2026. “Logically, these current economic efforts should be accompanied by economic stabilization planning in the short and medium term. Efforts today, for example, in the training of research staff,If the investment made today does not have a medium-term journey, it will be in vain. This allows the research system to continue to grow,” points out USC.