Science

Research and development and the research workforce

Research and knowledge are an engine of a modern, prosperous economy and society. These charts cover overall research and development spending and the people who carry that research out. Business-led R&D has its own page: Innovation.

Where Canada stands

A scorecard of where Canada ranks among the peer group’s 17 economies on each measure (latest available year). Dots are ordered by rank, so further right is more favourable for Canada (lower-is-better measures are flipped accordingly). Canada is maroon, key comparators in colour; hover a dot for its value and rank.

R&D expenditure (% of GDP)

Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) as a share of GDP: the standard measure of how much a country invests in research and development across government, business, and academia.

Note

Data lag: R&D statistics are reported to the OECD with a delay of typically 2–3 years, and countries report at different speeds. Canada is often a year or two ahead of most peers, so the most recent years may not yet have full peer coverage.

Latest R&D spending: ranked

Researchers per 1,000 employed

The number of researchers (full-time equivalent) per 1,000 people employed. This measures research intensity: the share of the workforce engaged in research. That is different from research output or quality, which is why countries with smaller workforces and strong public research (e.g., the Nordic countries and South Korea) rank highest.

Latest researchers per 1,000: ranked

Government science funding: the granting agencies

Most federal support for university research flows from three granting councils: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC, natural sciences and engineering), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR, health), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). A fourth agency, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), funds research infrastructure (labs, equipment and major facilities) rather than operating grants. This tracks their research-and-development funding over time, by federal fiscal year (so 2025 on the axis is 2025/26; the most recent year is planned spending and may be revised). CFI is shown as a separate line you can switch on from the legend.

The four agencies together are about $4.5 billion of the roughly $11 billion the federal government spends on science and technology R&D. Most of the rest is research performed inside government laboratories, such as the National Research Council (NRC), the single largest line of this spending. Other departments receiving research funds include the Canadian Space Agency, National Defence, Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and others. About seven in ten federal R&D dollars are granted out to universities, businesses and others (extramural); the remainder is performed in-house (intramural).

Use the menu to switch between nominal dollars and real (inflation-adjusted, constant 2017) dollars. The gap between inflation-adjusted and nominal dollars is revealing. Nominal funding has more than doubled since 2000, but adjusted for inflation it is far flatter. After rising through the 2000s, real funding was broadly level across the 2010s. NSERC’s and CIHR’s inflation-adjusted funding in the mid-2020s sits at or below where it was around 2010. SSHRC has grown notably in recent years.

How the envelope has changed

Federal science and technology R&D has grown from about $4 billion in 2000 to over $10 billion today. This is the whole envelope over time, grouped into the granting agencies, the National Research Council, and all other departments and in-house science. Switch to Share of total to see the composition shift: the granting agencies’ slice grew from roughly 28% to over 40% as more research support was routed through the councils, while the share performed inside departments fell.

In-house or granted out

The federal government both performs research in its own laboratories (intramural) and funds research carried out elsewhere. That outside (“extramural”) research work is done at universities, in business, and with other partners. In 2000 the split was roughly even. Since then, research performed in-house has grown slowly while the amount granted out has increased. Today about seven in ten federal R&D dollars are spent outside government. Switch to Share of total to see the shift from a 50/50 split to roughly 30/70.

Where the federal R&D dollar goes

The same money, by department and agency, for the latest fiscal year. The four research-funding agencies are highlighted; the rest is research performed by science-based departments. The single largest line is the National Research Council, the federal government’s own network of laboratories. The Canadian Space Agency, National Defence, and the science-based departments (Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment) are most of the remaining dollars.

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