Last year, the Spanish Government invested some 2,658 million euros in scientific investigation, development and innovation (R+D+I), almost 42% less than in 2009, according to data from the Ministry of Science. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, presented on July 9, 2020, after the first wave of the pandemic, a crash plan to boost Spanish science, weighed down by a decade of cuts. Then he proclaimed: “Spain cannot continue turning its back on science, on innovation, on research. We must bet forcefully on them.” The Government as a whole, however, invested in this area only 3% more in 2020 than in 2019, although it was 16% more than in 2016, when the budgets for R&D&I They hit rock bottom with conservative president Mariano Rajoy.
