A global database of public agricultural R&D investment: 1960-2022

Investment in public agricultural R&D is a key driver of agricultural productivity, which is regarded as one of the major solutions to enhance global food security, reduce the environmental impact of agricultural production and enhance crop resilience to climate change. Detailed information on public agricultural R&D investment is required to inform national science and technology policies that aim to improve the performance of the agricultural sector and monitor whether countries are on track to reach (inter)national targets. Due to the long lead-time, it requires exceptionally long time-series to assess the impact of public agricultural R&D spending on present and future agricultural productivity. To address these issues, this paper presents GRAPE - the WUR-ERS Global Research on Agriculture: Personnel & Expenditures database, which contains data on the number of public agricultural researchers and R&D expenditures for 190 countries, broadly covering the period 1960-2022. To construct the database, information from a large number of sources was combined, different R&D classifications were harmonized and missing data were imputed.