In addition to R&D expenditures, innovation expenditures also include expenditures for the application of the new idea and its market introduction.

Innovation intensity as the share of innovation expenditure in the total turnover of all companies in an economy indicates the intensity across all companies to invest in research, development and market introduction/application from total turnover.

In 2020, Germany ranked second behind Sweden with an innovation intensity of 3.4 percent across all sectors. In knowledge-intensive services, Denmark and Sweden recorded the highest innovation intensities of the countries under comparison, at 7.6 and 6.3 percent, respectively. With an innovation intensity of 9.4 percent, Germany was at the top of the list of the countries considered in the research-intensive industries.