Eurostat: Czech Republic spending more on R&D in sciences

A new report released by Eurostat - the European Union's statistical office - has shown that growth in spending in research and development in the sciences in the Czech Republic was among the fastest in recent years, especially compared to other new EU countries which joined the EU in 2004. According to the report, Czech R&D spending grew by 8.3 percent in the years 2001 to 2005. In 2005, for example, the country invested 1.42 percent of the GDP (the equivalent of around 1.4 billion euros) in the R&D sector, while the amount spent in some other eastern and central European countries was a percentage point less. But, the Czech Republic is still said to lag far behind countries like Sweden, Germany, and Finland when it comes to funding the sciences. More than half the amount spent on science R & D in the Czech Republic comes from private sources, namely private companies.