€2m allocated for research, development in 2018

A total of EUR 1,951.0 million were budgeted for research and development in the 2018 budget, which is EUR 67.8 million more than the funding published in the preliminary data, according to Statistics Finland bulletin.

A total of EUR 1,951.0 million were budgeted for research and development, which is EUR 67.8 million more than the funding published in the preliminary data.

Due to these updates, the appropriations for research and development in the state budget for 2019 are estimated to grow most in the objective category General advancement of knowledge. A majority of the objective category funding consists of the Academy of Finland’s R&D appropriations. On the other hand, R&D funding of the socioeconomic objective Industrial production and technology, which includes, for example, technology development, is expected to decrease in the 2019 budget.

Preliminary data on budget funding for R&D will be published on the basis of the autumn’s budget proposal. Preliminary figures are partly based on the forecast, which is made based on the plans and the current year's budget outturn at that moment, and even major changes in the final budget data are thus possible.

The use of the current year's outturn in the forecast gives outlines for the forecast, but it is difficult to know actual changes in funding more exactly in advance. In addition, because it is often possible to grant both R&D and innovation activity funding from the same item, this division may make it difficult to form preliminary figures for some respondent organisations. Plans may well change after the preliminary figures have been published, so there is always uncertainty involved in preliminary figures.