Funding for R&D can fuel growth and support democratic institutions in Greece

A water researcher tests a sample of water for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or 'forever chemicals,' in the United States. Greece lacks a steady source of funding for basic research, this writer says. [AP]

In July 2022 Professors Konstantinos Drosatos and Nicholas Ktistakis published a letter in Nature, the pre-eminent scientific journal, demanding the creation of a national research foundation in Greece. Forty scientists, including myself, were co-signatories. The letter raised one fundamental issue, namely the lack of systematic funding that would support research in Greece.

Greece's spending on research and development was 1.3% of GDP just before Covid in 2019. In Germany it was 3.2% of a much larger GDP and the average in the entire OECD was 2.7% of GDP. This huge deficit in R&D effectively limits Greece's growth potential and ensures a perpetual dependence on relatively low value-added sectors, such as tourism and agriculture. It also makes Greece unattractive for the highest-skilled Greek and foreign researchers. Greece seems to be suffering a form of the curse of middle...

Continue reading on: