 Total expenditure (public and private) in R&D was 0.78% of the GDP, which had reached 0.85% in 2001, when the European average was 1.98% for the then-15 EU member-states.Overall, higher education and related non-profit institutions represented in 2003 about 74% of Portuguese researchers, with a total value of 24.726 researchers (i.e., head counts), representing 13.008 FTE researchers.In December 2004, higher education institutions included 11.316 teaching-staff members holding a PhD degree.