U.S. R&D and Innovation in a Global Context: The 2024 Data Update

Investment in research and development (R&D) – activities to generate new knowledge and create new technology – is a cornerstone input for innovation. This report provides an update of major global trends in R&D and related innovation metrics across the major R&D economies, with a focus on American competitiveness.

This report relies primarily on new data from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),[i] the Web of Science’s publication archives,[ii] and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).[iii] All sources are cited at the bottom of each figure for clarity of origin.

1. Aggregate Trends

Adjusted for inflation and cross-economy price differences, global R&D investment has tripled over the past 30 years, from $672 billion in 1992 to over $2.2 trillion as of 2021, as can be seen in Figure 1.1. Last year’s report attempted to correct for the then- absence of Chinese data, which has been vetted and included in this latest version – hitting the mark expected for 2021. 

In last year’s report, it was noted that OECD countries, which make up 38 of the world’s most wealthy and robust economies, are no longer the sole drivers of R&D globally. This trend continues, with China, the largest non-OECD economy reporting R&D funding, contributing 27% of R&D investments globally in 2021, and representing 98% of non-OECD investments. The U.S. remains the top spender, funding 32% of global R&D in 2021. 

R&D funding as a share of GDP has plateaued for the OECD countries at large – staying at about 2.7% from 2020 to 2022, shown as the dotted line and right-side axis of the figure. A plateau overall does not mean that all countries are plateauing (more on that in the next section) nor are all sectors. 

[i] OECD Data Portal https://data-explorer.oecd.org/

[ii] Web of Science Search function, was accessed with a subscription to Essential Science Indicators https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/basic-search

[iii] WIPO Patent Search by Region https://www3.wipo.int/ipstats/ips-search/patent