Estonian research 2019

As a small country with scarce natural resources, Estonia’sdevelopment relies mainly on knowledgeable and entrepreneurialpeople. After regaining independence, we havereached a position where simple development factors havebeen exhausted and it is becoming increasingly clearer that forfurther socio-economic advancement, the potential of researchand development must be used more effectively.What is this potential, how does Estonian research compareinternationally, what are the major persisting and current problemsin research and development? In this overview, thesequestions are discussed based on facts and figures.The last similar overview Estonian Research 2016 was wellreceived. The data and analyses on Estonian research and developmentpresented there were widely used in many subsequentanalyses and contributed arguments to discussions regardingresearch policies.The main structure of the overview is similar to the previousone, consisting of two interrelated parts. The first part includesfour comprehensive articles, the first two explore the resourcesneeded for conducting scientific research: monetary resourceson the one hand and human resources on the other hand. Thenext two articles describe the performance of Estonian research.The first focuses on publishing activity and the quality of scientificpublications and the second on the socio-economic impactof research and the interrelations of research and society. Thearticles in the first part are compiled so that the principal datawould be comparable to the information presented in the previousoverview. This way, it is possible to build time-series insimilar overviews in the future. The second part of the overviewconsists of short articles on the current topical research policyissues.Estonian Research 2019 and the figures together with datatables are available on the webpage of the Estonian ResearchCouncil. An editorial board of professors Ülo Niinemets, ErkkiKaro, Rainer Kattel and Richard Villems from the Estonian Universityof Life Sciences, Tallinn University of Technology, andUniversity of Tartu oversaw the compilation of this publication.Special thanks to Professor Jüri Allik and Kalmer Lauk from theUniversity of Tartu for their willingness to contribute a paper in avery limited time. The staff of the Department of R&D Analysis,Estonian Research Council helped gathering material for the articles, much substantial assistance was provided by TiinaPärson, Leading Analyst at Statistics Estonia. Many thanks tothem and also to the authors of the articles and photographsused in this publication. I would also like to thank the ResearchCouncil’s Executive Director Karin Jaanson for her numerousrecommendations. Kadri Raudvere, the editor of this publication,deserves a special mention for assisting the authors in collectingnew data and motivating them in a delicate way when thewriting deadlines started to close in.The overview includes the most recent data that was availableat the time of compiling the publication (end of 2018). Sincecollecting and submitting statistical data at the state level oftentakes up to a year or sometimes even longer, some statisticaldata dates back to 2017 or an even earlier time. The data mostlyderives from OECD databases, Eurostat, Statistics Estonia,Ministry of Education and Research, Universities Estonia, andEstonian Research Council.We hope that the content of this overview offers food for thoughtfor researchers, policy makers, and all others interested inresearch, and that it will provide support for substantiated discussionson research and fact-based policy making. Andres Koppel, Director General of Estonian Research Council