Dutch government spending on research and development is shrinking as a proportion of GDP, according to new figures from the Rathenau Institute.

The institute, which focuses on promoting science to the general public, says spending on R&D will go down from 0.89% of GDP to 0.79% of GDP between now and 2020.

Direct government spending will go down from 0.7% to 0.62% during the same period, the institute says.

This means the Netherlands is in the centre, compared with the rest of Europe, the institute said. Denmark, Norway and France spend more than the Netherlands but Germany and Greece spend less.

Tax breaks

The government’s R&D budget this year is €6.2bn, a figure which is set to remain unchanged for the next four years. This is in line with government policy to focus more on creating tax breaks for innovative companies.

Government and public sector institutions have put millions of euros into stimulating nine key economic sectors but four of these have failed to generate similar investment from the private sector, the Financieele Dagblad said last month.

While the high tech materials sector – which includes chip machinery maker ASML – has generated large amounts of private sector investment, market gardening, the creative industries, logistics and chemicals & energy have not, the paper said.