Source : Commission for federal cooperation, Working group CFS/STAT; calculations Federal Science Policy Office These statistics only include internal personnel. Evolutions can be influenced by shifts between internal and external R&D personnel.
The share of researchers in the sector indicates the innovativeness of the sector and ensures the anchoring of the chemicals, plastics and life sciences industry in the Belgian economy.
The sector is R&D intensive with more than 11,000 people, or more than 1 person out of 9 in the sector involved in an R&D-related activity or working in an R&D department.
This includes about 7,800 full-time equivalent qualified scientific researchers, amounting to 23% of Belgium’s private sector researcher population.
Women are well represented in this field : 45% of researchers in the chemical and life sciences industry are women (against 25% in the private sector).
