Total expenditures for research and development in the year 2014 were 37,603 million kroners, which amounts to 1.89% of the Icelandic GDP of that year. The R&D expenditures increased by 7% from the year 2013, when they were 35,189 million, which amounted to 1.87% of the GDP. Statistics Iceland has now published revised figures on R&D expenditures for 2013, alongside the results for 2014. The R&D data collection was adopted by Statistics Iceland in 2013.
The data collection covers enterprises, the higher education sector, government sector and the private non-profit sector. The share of the different sectors in the total R&D expenditures is as follows: enterprises 21.4 billion in 2014, from 20.0 billion in 2013; higher education sector 13.3 billion in 2014, from 12.5 billion in 2013; and government sector pooled with the private non-profit sector 3.0 billion, from 2.8 billion in 2013.
Research and development in the service sector was 12.8 billion, or 60.1% of the total R&D expenditures of enterprises, while R&D in manufacturing was 6.7% billion, or 31.5%% of total expenditures or enterprises.
In the higher education sector, the field of science with the highest R&D expenditures was Social sciences, with 3.9 billion; but the second highest expenditures were in Medical and health sciences, 3.3 billion. In other fields of science the R&D expenditure was as follows: Natural sciences, 2.5 billion; Engineering and technology, 1.3 billion; Humanities, 1.2 billion; and Agricultural sciences, 1 billion.
The number of researchers in the higher education sector increases from 1,910 to 1,955 between years, of which PhD students were 248 in 2014, but 233 in 2013. Full-time equivalent researchers increased from 1,011 in 2013 to 1,033 in 2014.