Efamro, the European Research Foundation, published a new Moodindicator, this time with the results for Q2 2025. The results give a good indication of the development of the European research industry, particularly when comparing the results to the results of the previous waves.
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The top line results are:
- Overall base is 211.
- Results are from 11 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the UK. Of the eleven countries two (Belgium and Bulgaria) had very low responses of less than five per country and these results should be regarded as indicative.
- Thinking about the year ahead the majority of organisations from all eleven countries were confident that their research revenues would be either higher or the same as the previous year except Ireland where 67% were anticipating lower revenues.
- For four of the markets – Belgium, Bulgaria, Portugal and Spain – none of the participating businesses anticipated a reduction in their research revenues (noting that Belgium and Bulgaria had indictive results only).
- For countries with higher response rates (than countries with indicative results) the most optimistic countries for research revenues were again Spain where 79% of participants predicted higher revenues in the year ahead followed closely by Portugal with 67%.
- Overall, all the countries except Ireland and Belgium reported produced net positives from business owners on their anticipated research revenue performance. Ireland noticeably reported a net negative of -50 after five previous waves of the Moodindicator reported positives for Ireland.
- 43% of research organisations across Europe, who participated in the research, believe their research revenues will increase in the next year. This is six percentage points lower than reported in Q4 2024. 37% believe their revenues will be the same, compared to 34% in the previous wave, with 19% predicting lower revenues, two percentage points higher than the 17% reported for Q2 2024.
- Thinking about the year ahead for the research industry as a whole the expectations of growth are less buoyant. The majority of participants from eight of the countries are expecting the same level of growth (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the UK). Only in Spain were the majority of participants expecting that the research industry would have higher growth over the next 12 months, with 63% of participants expecting growth.
- There was also a more mixed picture for the net positives for national research markets with Austria, Germany, Ireland, Norway and the UK reporting net negative results with the remainder of other countries (Bulgaria, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) reporting net positives.
- There was some caution about the year ahead with the expectations for the research industry overall, with 16% of research organisations across Europe who participated believing that industry revenues will increase in the next year, a decrease of six percentage point from the 22% reporting expectations of growth in Q4 2024. However, the majority (60%) expect the research industry will be same over the next 12 months, with 21% anticipating lower industry revenues, a decrease of seven percentage points compared to 28% in Q4 2024.
- The overall results suggest that generally expectations are similar to the previous wave of the Moodindicator with generally more optimism about individual business revenues rather than the industry as a whole.