• Bodies
• Funding
- Sources of R&D Funding
- Government Funding on R&D
- Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D
- Allocation of GERD by Source of Funds
- Implementation of GERD


• Research Personnel
• Other features of the Greek R&D system

Sources of R&D Funding

The main sources of funding for research in Greece are: 

a) public, which includes budget appropriations, programmes cofunded by structural funds, programmes of the EU Framework Programme for R&D, 

b) private funding 

Budget appropriations refer to amounts coming from the state budget on a regular annual basis and to a lesser extend from the programme of public investments and mainly involves financing the running costs of universities and government research centres.

Structural funds come under the Community Support Frameworks and they are managed by the Ministry of Economy. The General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT), as a beneficiary of the CSF, announces programmes and funds research projects, which are carried out in Greece as joint ventures by universities, research centres, businesses or individual researchers, as well as research activities within the framework of inter-governmental agreements with other countries.

Greek research teams take part in European R&D programmes (mainly the Framework Programmes of the European Commission) in collaboration with equivalent bodies and businesses from other countries in the European Union.

Government Funding on R&D

Government Budget Appropriations or Outlays for R&D (GBAORD) relates to amounts coming from the state budget and the programme of public investments (including EU funds for R&D), available to fund R&D activities. table 1 shows a steady increase in GBAORD in the period 1995-2003.

Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D

The percentage of Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD), which measures the extent of research activity within an economy, has increased most notably in recent years. Though the progress achieved in the last ten years is also quite significant, with GERD rising from 0.381f GDP in 1989 to 0.65 in 2001. However, this percentage is the lowest in the European Union where the corresponding EU average is 1.93. This is mainly due to the limited contribution of the private sector (0.21), compared to the public sector contribution (0,43). table 2 shows the R&D Intensity () by Sector of Performance (the expenditure for each research sector includes the total amounts, irrespective of the source of the funding, spent on R&D activities).

Allocation of GERD by Source of Funds

The small contribution made by businesses to the Greek R&D system can also be seen from the statistics on sources of funding for R&D (2001 statistics) (table 3).

Implementation of GERD

As regards the performance of R&D (table 4), the universities and the government agencies make the greatest contribution in percentage terms, with businesses following behind. By contrast, in the EU, businesses make the greatest contribution to the implementation of the GERD.