Science funding spans national research budgets, business investment, universities, and targeted programs such as health, defense, energy, and computing. The latest figures show global R&D spending approaching USD 3.8 trillion in 2024, while U.S. federal R&D obligations reached USD 194.2 billion in fiscal year 2024 according to the supplied NCSES figures. This article separates 2024 estimates from earlier UNESCO measurements and describes the geography and measurement basis for each statistic.
Contents
- Global science funding at a glance
- Who funds research?
- R&D intensity and national comparisons
- Government budgets and research priorities
- U.S. federal R&D obligations
- DOE Office of Science funding
- Research capacity and scientific output
Global science funding at a glance
The OECD’s “OECD overall R&D growth stable” figures put inflation-adjusted R&D growth in the OECD area at 2.6% in 2024. The United States grew 3.4%, while the European Union grew 0.4%. Germany’s R&D expenditure fell 0.4%. Japan, Korea, and Türkiye each recorded R&D growth above 5% in the same year. Higher-education R&D growth was close to 2%.
Global R&D spending may have reached USD 3.8 trillion in 2024. OECD countries accounted for about USD 2.3 trillion of that total: USD 1.0 trillion from the United States, USD 0.6 trillion from the European Union, and USD 0.7 trillion from other OECD economies. Non-OECD economies other than China accounted for close to USD 0.4 trillion. The United States and China each reached about USD 1 trillion in R&D spending.
These totals use different comparison concepts, so the exchange-rate and purchasing-power-parity results should not be treated as interchangeable. In exchange-rate terms, China’s 2024 R&D spending was about 50% of U.S. spending, compared with 44% in 2014 and 8% in 2004. Using 2020-base PPPs, China’s 2024 spending would have been about 90% to 95% of U.S. spending. The EU was 43% of U.S. spending in exchange-rate terms in 2024, versus 57% in 2014.
| Comparison basis | China relative to U.S. | EU relative to U.S. |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 exchange-rate terms | 50% | 43% |
| 2014 exchange-rate terms | 44% | 57% |
| 2024 PPP-adjusted terms | 90%–95% | 60% |
| 2014 PPP-adjusted terms | Not supplied | 70% |
The OECD-area R&D intensity held at 2.7% of GDP in 2024, unchanged at 2.7% since 2020. China’s R&D intensity caught up with the OECD area in 2024. EU R&D intensity was 2.1% of GDP in 2024 and had also remained unchanged at 2.1% since 2020. Israel recorded 6.8% of GDP and Korea 5.1% in 2024, making them two of the highest-intensity economies in this set.
Who funds research?
Businesses were responsible for 73% of OECD gross domestic expenditure on R&D, or GERD, in 2024. The comparable business share was 67% in 2010. The figures indicate a larger business role in the OECD funding mix over that period, although GERD includes the total performance of R&D rather than a simple list of government grants.
Government remains important both as a direct funder and as a source of institutional support. OECD government R&D budgets fell 4.1% in inflation-adjusted terms in 2024, after rising 0.7% in 2023. Within the 2024 government-budget picture, defense R&D budgets grew 1.2%, while General University Funds support grew 2.1%.
The distribution was uneven across regions and fields. EU27 defense R&D budgets grew 11.5% in 2024, and Japan’s defense R&D budgets grew 17.9%. By contrast, energy- and environment-related government budget appropriations or outlays for R&D fell 8.0%. Among nine OECD countries with 2025 estimates, government R&D budgets fell by more than 5% in real terms.
The U.S. government R&D budget was down 7.9% in those 2025 estimates. Because the 2025 figures are estimates rather than completed historical totals, they should be read as a forward-looking budget measure and not as a final account of realized spending.
R&D intensity and national comparisons
R&D intensity measures research spending relative to GDP, which helps compare countries of different economic size. The OECD-area level of 2.7% in 2024 and the EU level of 2.1% show that a large absolute budget and a high national effort are different measures. The United States and China were each near USD 1 trillion in absolute R&D spending, while Israel’s 6.8% and Korea’s 5.1% describe much higher spending relative to domestic economic output.
Longer-run global figures from the UNESCO Science Report 2021 factsheet provide an earlier baseline. Global R&D spending was 1.73% of GDP in 2014 and 1.79% in 2018. Only 37 countries spent at least 1% of GDP on R&D in 2018. Between 2014 and 2018, 32 countries increased research spending by at least 1.0% of GDP, while 13 countries saw research spending fall by at least 1.0% of GDP.
The same UNESCO factsheet reports that global research spending grew faster than the global economy over 2014–2018. China accounted for 44% of global research-spending growth during that period, followed by the United States at 19%, the European Union at 11%, the Republic of Korea at 5%, and India at 4%. These are contributions to growth over a historical interval, not shares of the entire global research budget.
Government budgets and research priorities
The federal R&D data show how a national science budget can be concentrated in a small number of agencies. In fiscal year 2024, the five largest U.S. federal R&D agencies accounted for 93% of the portfolio, equal to USD 181.4 billion. The Department of Defense accounted for 50%, or USD 97.9 billion; Health and Human Services accounted for 25%, or USD 48.8 billion; Energy accounted for 9%, or USD 16.9 billion; NASA accounted for 6%, or USD 10.9 billion; and the National Science Foundation accounted for 4%, or USD 7.0 billion. All other departments and agencies accounted for 7%, or USD 12.8 billion.
Federal R&D obligations rose 4.4% in FY 2024, an increase of USD 8.2 billion. DOD R&D obligations rose 14.4%, from USD 85.5 billion in FY 2023 to USD 97.9 billion in FY 2024. HHS R&D obligations fell 7.1%, from USD 52.5 billion to USD 48.8 billion. NIH represented 91% of HHS R&D obligations and increased 1.2%, from USD 44.0 billion to USD 44.5 billion.
Some program changes were especially large. BARDA R&D obligations fell to USD 1.5 billion in FY 2024 from USD 5.9 billion in FY 2023; they had been USD 15.7 billion in FY 2020 and USD 33.9 billion in FY 2021, compared with USD 736 million in FY 2019. ARPA-H R&D obligations increased from USD 794 million to USD 1.0 billion between FY 2023 and FY 2024.
The NCSES FY 2025 estimates projected federal R&D obligations to decline 0.1% to USD 194.1 billion. DOD was estimated to fall 4.6% to USD 93.4 billion, HHS 2.2% to USD 47.7 billion, DOE 5.1%, and NSF 2.4%. NASA was estimated to stay flat at USD 10.9 billion. The five largest agencies together were projected to fall 3.6%, from USD 181.4 billion to USD 174.9 billion.
The overall estimate was affected by unusually large changes elsewhere. DOC R&D obligations were estimated to jump 263% to USD 9.8 billion. Excluding DOC, total FY 2025 federal R&D obligations would have fallen USD 7.4 billion. Public Laws 117-58, 117-167, and 117-169 raised their contribution to the federal R&D portfolio from USD 740 million in FY 2024 to USD 8.0 billion in FY 2025, while NIST R&D obligations rose from USD 1.3 billion to USD 8.0 billion.
DOE Office of Science funding
The DOE Office of Science FY 2024 budget request was USD 8.8004 billion, up USD 700.4 million, or 8.65%. The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program requested USD 1.1260 billion, up USD 58.0 million, or 5.4%, including USD 14.0 million for the Exascale Computing Initiative.
Basic Energy Sciences requested USD 2.6929 billion, up USD 158.9 million, or 6.3%. Biological and Environmental Research totaled USD 931.7 million, up USD 23.0 million, or 2.53%. Fusion Energy Sciences totaled USD 1.0105 billion, up USD 247.3 million, or 32.4%; its research funding was USD 760.5 million, up USD 250.3 million, and construction funding was USD 250.0 million.
High Energy Physics totaled USD 1.2263 billion, up USD 60.3 million, or 5.17%. Its research funding was USD 850.3 million and construction funding was USD 376.0 million. The Long Baseline Neutrino Facility/Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment received USD 251.0 million, while the Proton Improvement Plan II received USD 125.0 million.
Nuclear Physics totaled USD 811.4 million, up USD 6.2 million, or 0.8%. Its program supported four scientific user facilities at nearly 90% of optimal operations and provided over 95% of the nation’s fundamental nuclear physics research portfolio. The Isotope Research and Production program requested USD 173.1 million, up USD 63.6 million, or 58.1%, while isotope-facility mission readiness rose to about 92%.
The Office of Science’s 28 user facilities served nearly 37,000 users per year; another supplied measure reports annual access by over 38,500 researchers. Its basic-research grants and contracts supported nearly 32,000 researchers at over 300 institutions and 17 DOE national laboratories. These user counts describe research infrastructure reach, not unique people across every facility.
Research capacity and scientific output
The UNESCO Science Report 2021 factsheet counted 8.854 million full-time-equivalent researchers worldwide in 2018, up from 7.790 million in 2014. The researcher pool grew 13.7% while global population grew 4.6%. Women represented 33.3% of researchers in 2018, compared with 28.4% in 2013. Women were 28% of tertiary engineering graduates and 40% of tertiary computer-science graduates in 2018.
Worldwide scientific publications increased 21% between 2015 and 2019. International collaboration also expanded: 23.5% of global publications in 2019 had coauthors from at least two countries, compared with 21.7% in 2015 and 18.6% in 2011. Health research made up 34% of scientific publications in 2019, while cross-cutting strategic technologies made up 18%.
Publication growth was not evenly distributed. Environmental research grew 45.7% between 2015 and 2019; it represented 3.6% of worldwide publications in 2015. High-income countries’ share of scientific publications fell from 69.3% to 62.9%, and their share of cross-cutting strategic-technology publications fell from 60.5% to 52.2%.
Technology-specific counts show the range of activity. AI and robotics publications rose from 102,347 in 2015 to 147,806 in 2019. Nanotechnology publications grew 48%, while biotechnology publications grew 12% to 18,714. Optoelectronics publications fell from 29,517 to 26,651. Internet-of-Things research produced 3,430 publications in 2019.
Environmental and sustainability topics also expanded in selected areas. Publications on floating plastic debris rose from 46 in 2011 to 853 in 2019. There were 5,247 publications on ecological alternatives to plastics, 4,769 on climate-ready crops, 1,276 on minimizing poaching and trafficking of protected species, and 1,039 on local disaster-risk-reduction strategies in 2019. Sustainable-energy topics accounted for 2.4% of global scientific output over 2016–2019, compared with 2.1% over 2012–2015. Across 56 sustainability topics, scientific output grew by at least 0.02% in 19 topics over 2012–2019.
The concentration of global capacity is also visible in the G20. In 2018, G20 economies accounted for 88.8% of researchers, 93.2% of research spending, and 90.6% of scientific publications. Regional differences remained substantial: Latin America’s research expenditure fell 7% in PPP dollars between 2014 and 2018, while its research spending declined from 0.73% to 0.66% of GDP and expenditure per researcher fell 15%. Central Asia’s research expenditure fell 15% in PPP dollars, its GDP share fell from 0.17% to 0.12%, and expenditure per researcher fell 5% over the same period.