Researchers are professionals engaged in the conception or creation of new knowledge, products, processes, methods and systems, and in the management of the projects concerned. Numbers of researchers and R&D personnel are presented by public (government, higher education) and private (business and non-for-profit) sectors, and by sex. The number of researchers and R&D personnel is an input indicator of a country’s R&D effort. In some countries R&D investment can be relatively low, but they may nevertheless have an important part of the active population in R&D activities.

The number of researchers is counted on the basis of Full Time Equivalent (FTE). Full count of researchers with less than a 100% FTE yields slightly different data.