Trends in R&D policies for a European Knowledge-based Economy

This report provides an assessment of policies put in place by EU Member States to reach the objectives set out in the Lisbon Strategy, by presenting to the reader a summary of relevant information on R&D policies in Europe, supported by statistical and other quantitative and qualitative information. In doing so, it contributes to a better understanding of the European Research Area (ERA) and goes beyond the mere overview of Member States efforts in the R&D domain by distilling some more general trends out of the available information. The focus is on activities in the most recent years, even though in some cases the lack of updated statistics makes it necessary to refer to older data. Also, due to the diversity of Member States, sometimes the identified trends are not applicable to all EU countries; for this reason, throughout the report some concrete examples of the diverse stances adopted by Member States are also presented.