Resumen de Rd expenditure on higher education in Spain, 1990-2015: Inequalities, among regions and fields, and comparisons with Europe and the United States

María del Carmen Guisán Seijas

• In this study we present a comparison of Spain with other 4 major European countries (Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom), as well as a comparison of these five EU countries (EU5) with the United States (USA). The main conclusion is that financial aid to university research is very low in Spain in comparison with other European countries and very low in Europe in Comparison with the United States. For the last decades, Spanish universities have experienced an important increase of research production, in quantity and quality, but at the cost of a great effort for researchers due to the precarious financial conditions due to general low levels of support from Spanish Government. The European Union support to university research in Spain has been also very low. We find that Spanish Government should increase support to university research in all the territory, with transparency and better distribution of financial aid among regions and fields, accordingly to the scientific merit of university researchers. In this regard it is very important to improve the channels of communication between researchers and Government, both in Spain and in the European Union.