Canadian 2014 R&D expenditures steady at $30.6B

Ottawa, ON – Statistics Canada has released its R&D spending intentions for 2014. In the report, it says Canada’s gross domestic expenditures on research and development (R&D) are expected to total $30.6 billion for 2014. This is virtually unchanged from total R&D expenditures in 2013 of $30.7 billion.

The business enterprise sector has historically been the largest contributing sector to gross domestic expenditures in both performing and funding R&D. For 2014, business enterprises performing R&D expect to spend $15.4 billion, down 0.9% from the previous year. For R&D funding, the business enterprise sector is expected to finance $14.1 billion in 2014, down 1.1% from the previous year.

The higher education sector’s R&D performing intentions for 2014 are $12.4 billion and $5.5 billion for funding intentions.

The federal government funds more R&D than it performs. This sector anticipates performing $2.3 billion in R&D, down 6.9% from 2013. Federal government funding of R&D is expected to decline 1.9% to $5.8 billion in 2014.

Provincial governments, similar to their federal counterpart, also fund more R&D than they perform. For 2014, provincial government performance of R&D activities is predicted to be $304 million, while provincial governments expect to increase R&D funding by 1.1% from 2013 to $2.1 billion. Provincial research organizations, although often combined with provincial government data, actually perform more R&D activities than they fund. Provincial research organizations are projected to perform $34 million in R&D activity and fund $5 million.

The private non-profit sector anticipates a 5.0% increase in its R&D performance to $169 million. This sector expects to increase R&D funding by 1.2%.

R&D funding also includes the foreign sector, which anticipates financing $1.8 billion in 2014, relatively unchanged from 2013.

Table 1 shows a detailed breakdown of research and development spending intentions.