Scientific research is measured through several connected systems: publications, research and development (R&D) spending, patents, intellectual property registrations, and the people conducting research. The statistics below show how activity was distributed globally and how major research sectors were funded, with dates and geographies kept explicit.
Contents
- Publication output worldwide
- United States research and development
- Business and higher education research
- Federal research and development centers
- Patents and other intellectual property
- The global researcher workforce
Publication output worldwide
The National Science Foundation’s Discovery: R&D Activity and Research Publications reported 3.3 million worldwide science and engineering (S&E) articles in 2023. Annual output increased from 2.2 million articles in 2014 to 3.3 million in 2023. This is a publication-count measure, so it describes the volume of published S&E articles rather than the quality, influence, or practical effect of individual studies.
Publication growth was concentrated among a small group of countries. China, the United States, India, and Germany each produced more than 100,000 S&E articles in 2023. Together, those four countries accounted for over half of worldwide S&E publication output that year.
China accounted for 51% of the additional worldwide publications added between 2014 and 2023. India accounted for another 13% of the additional publications added during that period. These shares describe contributions to the increase in global output, not the percentage of all articles produced by each country.
The UNESCO Science Report 2021 provides an earlier view of the concentration of research activity. In 2018, G20 countries accounted for nine-tenths of scientific publications, 88.8% of researchers, and 93.2% of research spending. The publication and workforce figures refer to 2018, while the spending figure is also presented by UNESCO as a 2018 global distribution.
United States research and development
NSF reported that U.S. domestic R&D performance totaled $937 billion in 2023. The same NSF report estimated U.S. domestic R&D performance at $993 billion in 2024. The 2024 figure is an estimate, so it should not be read as a finalized 2024 total. NSF described the increase from 2023 to the 2024 estimate as $26 billion, with businesses accounting for $17 billion and the federal government accounting for another $7 billion of that increase.
U.S. R&D performance in 2023 was divided among three broad activities:
| U.S. R&D activity, 2023 | Amount |
|---|---|
| Basic research | $138 billion |
| Applied research | $174 billion |
| Experimental development | $625 billion |
Source: NSF, U.S. R&D Totaled $937 Billion in 2023.
The largest amount was experimental development at $625 billion. Applied research totaled $174 billion, while basic research totaled $138 billion. These categories describe the reported distribution of U.S. domestic R&D performance in 2023 and should not be treated as measures of publication output.
The federal government obligated $186 billion for U.S. R&D in fiscal year 2023, according to NSF’s Federal Support for U.S. R&D, Table DISC-9. In the NSF Discovery: R&D Activity and Research Publications data, 25% of federal R&D obligations went to basic research, 29% went to applied research, and 46% went to experimental development in fiscal year 2023.
Business and higher education research
U.S. business R&D performance reached $722 billion in 2023, according to NSF’s Business R&D Performance in the United States Increases to $722 Billion in 2023. The business total included $43 billion in basic research, $110 billion in applied research, and $568 billion in development.
Federal funding supplied 81% of the R&D dollars that businesses received in 2023. Within that federal support for business R&D, aerospace products and parts received $19 billion. Scientific research and development services received $4 billion, and computer and electronic products received $2 billion. These figures identify selected industry recipients of federal funding; they are not the total R&D performance of those industries.
Higher education is another major setting for scientific research. NSF reported that higher education R&D expenditures reached $108.8 billion in fiscal year 2023 in Higher Education R&D Expenditures Increased 11.2%, Exceeded $108 Billion in FY 2023. Spending increased 11.2% from fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2023 and grew at a 5.0% average compound annual rate in current dollars from fiscal year 2013 to fiscal year 2023.
The NSF Higher Education Research and Development Survey 2023 separated higher education’s fiscal-year 2023 costs into $84.2 billion in direct R&D costs and $24.5 billion in indirect R&D costs. The distinction matters because the two figures describe different cost components within the same higher education research system.
Federal research and development centers
Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) spent $29.3 billion on R&D in fiscal year 2023, according to NSF’s Federally Funded R&D Centers Report 13% Increase in R&D Spending in FY 2023. FFRDC R&D spending rose for the 10th consecutive year.
Federal sources funded 98.5% of FFRDC R&D expenditures in fiscal year 2023. The reported distribution by activity was:
| FFRDC R&D activity, FY 2023 | Share | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Applied research | 40.7% | $11.9 billion |
| Experimental development | 39.4% | $11.5 billion |
| Basic research | 20.0% | $5.9 billion |
Source: NSF, Federally Funded R&D Centers Report 13% Increase in R&D Spending in FY 2023.
Applied research represented the largest reported share at 40.7%, followed closely by experimental development at 39.4%. Basic research represented 20.0%. The percentages and dollar amounts are both reported for FFRDC R&D expenditures in fiscal year 2023; they are not a breakdown of all U.S. federal R&D obligations.
Patents and other intellectual property
WIPO’s World Intellectual Property Indicators 2024 reported 3,504,000 global patent applications in 2023. Global patent applications surpassed 3.5 million for the first time that year. Asia accounted for 68.7% of applications filed worldwide in 2023, showing the regional concentration of patent filing activity.
The following figures are patent applications received by the named origin or office in 2023, as reported in WIPO’s patent highlights:
| Country or region | Patent applications, 2023 | Change in 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| China | 1,680,000 | 3.6% |
| United States | 518,364 | 2.5% |
| Japan | 414,413 | 2.2% |
| Republic of Korea | 287,954 | 5.7% |
| Germany | 133,053 | 1.4% |
| India | 64,480 | 15.7% |
| France | 52,582 | Not reported here |
| United Kingdom | 48,227 | Not reported here |
| Switzerland | 41,876 | Not reported here |
| Italy | 26,818 | Not reported here |
The top five patent origins together filed around 2.81 million applications in 2023. WIPO also reported a resident-and-abroad patent filing class count of about 7.4 million for China. The corresponding combined domestic-and-abroad application class count was 849,876 for U.S. applicants, 414,413 for Japan, and 287,954 for the Republic of Korea. These class-count measures should not be substituted for the global application total.
Computer technology featured in 12.4% of worldwide published patent applications in 2023. The figure describes the technology field represented in published applications, not the share of all scientific publications devoted to computing.
WIPO also reported 88.2 million active trademark registrations worldwide in 2023, an increase of 6.4%. China’s intellectual property office recorded 4.4 million trademark classes and accounted for 42.8% of all trademark registrations recorded worldwide. China held 46.1 million trademark registrations in force, while India and the United States each held nearly 3.2 million.
Active design registrations reached 6.08 million worldwide in 2023, increasing 10.5%. China accounted for 53.2% of active design registrations, or 3.23 million. The United States had 424,718 active design registrations, the Republic of Korea had 414,117, the EUIPO had 329,358, and the United Kingdom had 309,554. Nearly 95% of global active design registrations were concentrated among the top 20 design offices.
The age of active design registrations also varied by country. The average age was 10.7 years in Spain and 2.8 years in the United Kingdom in 2023. These are averages for active design registrations, not the age of the countries’ overall design systems.
The global researcher workforce
UNESCO estimated 8.854 million full-time-equivalent researchers worldwide in 2018 in the UNESCO Science Report 2021. The global researcher pool grew 13.7% between 2014 and 2018, while the global population grew 4.6% over the same period. By 2018, researchers per million inhabitants had grown 9.9% since 2014.
Researcher growth was uneven across countries and regions. Researcher density in 28 countries expanded by at least 20% between 2014 and 2018. Low-income economies saw researcher density grow 36% since 2014, but they accounted for only 0.2% of the world’s researchers in 2018.
Sub-Saharan Africa held 14% of the world’s people but only 0.7% of the world’s researchers in 2018. China accounted for 21.1% of global researchers, the European Union accounted for 23.5%, and the United States accounted for 16.2% in 2017. The U.S. figure is explicitly measured for 2017, unlike the China and European Union shares stated for 2018.
UNESCO measured Latin America at 1.03 researchers per 1,000 people in the labor force in 2017. Argentina recorded 2.91 researchers per 1,000 people in the labor force in 2017. These density figures use the labor force as the denominator and therefore are not interchangeable with researchers per million inhabitants.
Finally, the OECD’s Main Science and Technology Indicators March 2024 reported that R&D intensity in the OECD area remained constant in 2022. This measure is reported for the OECD area and for 2022, so it should not be generalized to the global research system or to later years.