Approaches to the Assessment of Research and Development in EU Countries

This paper deals with approaches to the assessment of Research and Development (R&D) in the countries of the European Union. Results of the research introduce the assessment of R&D in the EU (27) countries, on the basis of the indicator of R&D results (the number of publications in R&D per 1,000 inhabitants, and the number of publications per FTE researcher from the government and the higher education sector), and the indicator of human resources in R&D (research in the public sector per 1,000 active persons) in 2012, using cluster analysis and correlation analysis. By means of cluster analysis, EU countries were divided into four clusters, where the most significant differences were observed in the mean value of the number of publications in R&D per 1,000 inhabitants, as opposed to the least significant differences, which were observed in the mean value of researchers in the public sector per 1,000 active persons among all clusters. The results of the correlation analysis in EU countries confirmed a moderate correlation in the number of publications in R&D per 1,000 inhabitants, and the number of publications per FTE researcher in the government and the higher education sector.