The purpose of these statistics is to compile how much of Sweden’s research and development (R&D) is financed by government appropriations and provide an indication of the government’s priorities regarding R&D objectives. This constitutes a preliminary summary of the 2026 government budget. A final version where supplementary changes to the budget during the year are included, will be published at the end of next year.

In the budget for 2026 there are in total SEK 1 543 billion in government appropriations, about 7 percent more than in the previous budget for 2025. Of these, Statistics Sweden calculates that SEK 49 349 million, about SEK 50 billion, are for R&D. This corresponds to an increase of SEK 522 million, 1.1 percent. The R&D share is calculated at 3.2 percent, which is the lowest level since 2008.

“It is a lesser increase of the R&D appropriations and a lower share of the budget than we have seen in many years” says Philip von Schéele, economist and statistician at Statistics Sweden.

More than half of the R&D allocations go to Education and academic research

The government budget is distributed across 27 areas of expenditure, with each representing one part of the economy. The largest in terms of R&D appropriations is Education and academic research, amounting to SEK 32.6 billion — an increase from SEK 32.4 in the previous year. This is followed by Industry and trade at SEK 4.5 billion, and Defence and contingency measures at SEK 2.3 billion. The expenditure area of Industry and trade encompasses, amongst other things, Sweden’s innovation agency (VINNOVA), one of the large public research funding bodies. Defence and contingency measures also represent the single largest increase at SEK 566 million, an increase of 25 percent. Education and academic research comes in at second place regarding increases in absolute terms, SEK 245 million, or a bit less than 1 percent. Another significant increase is within Transport and communications which increases by SEK 147 million, or 17 percent.

The largest decrease can be found in the area of Climate, environment and nature whose R&D appropriations fall by SEK 672 million compared to the previous year. This corresponds to a 25 percent reduction. The reduction can mainly be attributed to a reduced grant for The Industrial Leap (Industriklivet), partly as a result of changes to the eligibility criteria for which projects may receive additional funding. Aside from this, reductions can also be found within Energy, which receives SEK 100 million (7.3 percent) less in this budget and in Labour and working life, where the R&D allocation is SEK 9 million (9 percent) lower.

Defence is a prioritised objective

A different way of dividing the GBARD is to consider the socioeconomic objectives of the appropriations. For this, Statistics Sweden follows the Eurostat framework of the NABS classification.

The largest socioeconomic objective is the General advancement of knowledge. This encompasses R&D which is not oriented to a specific objective but rather about the furthering of knowledge in general. The funds are often researcher initiated and may be funded in two separate ways: general university funds (GUF) and through other means, primarily through the public research funding bodies or research councils. Together, these make up about 67 percent of the total R&D appropriations, just over SEK 33 billion. Of these, SEK 21.5 billion are GUF. These two objectives are followed by Health at 7 percent and Defence at just under 5 percent.

Similarly to the expenditure areas, the largest relative increase from the previous budget in 2025 is within the objective of Defence, which sees its appropriations increase almost 20 percent, or barely SEK 400 million. Industrial production and technology (+ 10.6 percent) and Exploration and exploitation of space (+ 9.3 percent) also see large relative increases. The increase within Industrial production and technology is primarily driven by increased appropriations for the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI).

The largest decrease can be found within the objective of Energy, whose appropriations are reduced by almost 18 percent, about SEK 500 million. This can largely be attributed to the decreased funds for The Industrial Leap mentioned previously.

Natural sciences remain as the largest research area

Within the General advancement of knowledge, the appropriations are divided among subcategories based on the fields of research and development. The largest of these is Natural sciences at about 30 percent, followed by Medical sciences with 23 percent. Social sciences and Engineering sciences are about equal in their share at about 17 percent. The areas of Humanities and Agricultural sciences represent 8 and 4 percent of the R&D objective, respectively.

In general, the GUF make up almost 65 percent of the R&D appropriations within the General advancement of knowledge. For Natural, Medical and Engineering sciences it's share is between 59 and 62 percent. The two smaller areas have a larger share of their funding stem from the GUF: 78 percent for the Humanities and 95 percent for Agricultural sciences.

Facts

Statistics on government budget allocations for R&D 2026 are preliminary and based on the content of the provisional appropriations in the central government budget at the beginning of each budget year.

The statistics are based on data on funding levels and R&D coefficients derived from the surveys Research and development in the government sector and the higher education sector, respectively. The R&D coefficients indicate the R&D share in each budget item. Preliminary statistics for 2025 and 2026 are based on coefficients derived from the latest R&D survey covering the reference year 2023.

Final statistics for 2025 will take into account budget appropriations in the supplementary budgets during the year and will be published on December 9, 2025.

The survey follows guidelines set up by the OECD and published in the Frascati Manual, Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development, Frascati Manual (OECD, 2015). These statistics are also subject to the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020. The data are submitted to Eurostat, who produce compilations for the EU countries.