For some year now, the Basque Country has been making a major effort, in terms of financial resources and personnel, to promote R&D in the region.

In 2007 total expenditure on R&D in the Basque Country came to 1,090 million euros, equivalent to 1.65 per cent of the GDP. This is above the average for Spain as a whole (1.20 per cent), although still a considerable way below European levels (1.84 per cent in 2006). In the Basque Country, 14,435 people per thousand units of the working population were working in full-time equivalence (FTE) in R&D, a 14.2 ‰.

The Basque Country holds the third place in Spain, behind Madrid and Navarre, in terms of regional R&D effort, with expenditure equivalent to 1.98% and 1.92% of their GDP for the year 2006, according to INE data.

Although the overall data give a basic general idea of the efforts now being made, any deeper insight into the nature of R&D activity and the main agents in the Basque Country require a breakdown of such activity according to the sectors involved (business, public administration and university). Business R&D is particularly strong in the Basque Country, accounting for 81.3 per cent of total R&D expenditure in 2007, as opposed to the Spanish figure for business of 55.7 per cent in 2006.

The business world puts up most of the financial resources used in research. The current figure of 643 million euros accounts for 59% of such financing in the region, some way above both the Spanish average of 45.5% in 2007 and the average figure for the European Union, which came to 54.6% in 2006. In terms of private R&D funding levels, the Basque Country stands comparison with countries like the US.