Croatia Doubles Innovation Investment
Government spending on research and development in Croatia has surged by 93 percent over the past decade, yet at €168 per capita, the country still ranks in the lower half of the European Union.
Government spending on research and development in Croatia has surged by 93 percent over the past decade, yet at €168 per capita, the country still ranks in the lower half of the European Union.
Government investment in research and development (R&D) across the European Union reached a record high last year, with Croatia posting one of the strongest growth rates among member states, although it still lags significantly behind the European average. According to the latest Eurostat data, total budget allocations for R&D in the EU amounted to €130.2 billion in 2025.
This represents a 2.4 percent increase compared to the previous year. The comparison with 2015 is even more striking, as public spending across the Union has surged by 60.5 percent, reaching 0.69 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest share in the past decade.
Croatia has continued to boost public investment in science and innovation. For 2025, according to data from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics and Eurostat, €650.7 million has been earmarked, which amounts to roughly €168 per person. A decade earlier, in 2015, that figure stood at approximately €87 per capita.
Thus, in Croatia, government funds for research and development have increased by about 93 percent over ten years, far outpacing the European Union average. In the EU, per capita spending rose from €183.2 in 2015 to €288.9 in 2025, an increase of 57.7 percent.
Despite robust growth, Croatia continues to lag significantly behind the European average. With approximately €168 per person, Croatia sits in the lower half of the ranking among member states. Compared to the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Greece, Poland, Cyprus, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Malta, Hungary, and Romania, we fare better, but we trail behind most of the more developed EU members.
Luxembourg allocated the most public money for R&D per person in 2025, at a whopping €917.2. It is followed by Denmark with €627.1 and Germany with €553.5 per capita. At the bottom of the list are Romania with €18.8, Hungary with €57.4, and Malta with €73.7 per person.
According to Eurostat, Romania is the only member state where per capita R&D spending has decreased over the past decade, while all other countries have seen growth. Bulgaria recorded the largest relative increase, with a surge of nearly 500 percent.
The largest share of European budget funds for research and development, specifically 37.3 percent, is directed towards the general advancement of knowledge through funding for public universities. This is followed by research funded from other sources at 18.4 percent, industrial production and technology at 9.5 percent, health at 6.7 percent, and defense at 5.8 percent.
These figures indicate that European countries continue to increase public investment in science, innovation, and the development of new technologies to enhance the competitiveness of their economies in an era of rapid advancement in artificial intelligence, digitalization, and the green transition. Croatia, however, is making significant progress, but its investment level remains well below the European Union average.
