3.6R&D personnel in the public sector

By Peter Viaene (EWI).

Over the past five years, the number of research staff has increased both in companies and in the public sector. The public sector groups together all research institutes from the higher education sector (HES), the government sector (GOV) and the private not-for-profit sector (PNP). The majority of the R&D personnel (64.9%) work in the private sector (BES). The overall share of the public component (PNP, HES and GOV) declined between 2013 and 2019 and stays since 2020 rather stable. The HES component is the most important element of the public component (with 16,908 FTE or 72.5%) in 2021, followed by the GOV component (5,946 FTE or 25.5%).

The R&D staff within the non-profit organisations (public sector) counted more than 23,300 full-time equivalents in 2021. This figure corresponds with about 38,400 headcount, of which more than 27,850 researchers and approximately 10,550 technical and other personnel. The breakdown of R&D staff by gender shows that around 18,200 women and 20,200 men are employed in the public sector on R&D activities. About one in three of the R&D personnel in the public sector has granted a PhD (12,000 headcount).

The R&D personnel in the GOV and HES (2021) can be broken down by different fields of science. For the GOV sector, this indicates the dominant position of engineering and technology. For the HES sector, the most important fields of science are the medical sciences, engineering, the natural sciences and social sciences.

About 82% of the R&D personnel working in the HES on R&D activities in Flanders are researchers (2021). This figure is high compared to the other European countries and much higher than the EU27 average but lower than Sweden. Approximately 73% of the R&D personnel (2021) in the GOV in Flanders are also researchers. Once again, this figure is higher than for France, Germany and the EU27 average, but this time lower than  Denmark and Finland.

With a figure of 44.1% for female researchers working in the higher education (HES), Flanders again compares favourably with neighbouring countries (Germany and France), but the Scandinavian countries show similar or higher rates here. For female staff working in public research centres (GOV), Flanders has a score lower than the neighbouring countries, but once again cannot match the higher performance of the north European countries.