Lithuanian inventions and science

Research and development spending

Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP (Eurostat), Lithuania beside the EU27 average, year by year.

Source: Eurostat

Patent applications

Applications to the European Patent Office per million inhabitants, counted by the inventor's country of residence (Eurostat).

No rank is shown here, and none should be. Lithuania files 70–130 EPO applications in a year, so one research group's filings move the country several places up the EU table and back down the year after: a rank off that base would report noise as news. The whole run of years is shown instead.

Eurostat flags the latest year (2025) as provisional, so that figure may still be revised.

Source: Eurostat

Lasers

• According to Innovation Agency Lithuania, Lithuania has more than 60 laser companies employing 2,160 people, alongside 5 research centres and universities, with sales revenue of EUR 284 million.
• According to Innovation Agency Lithuania, the sector grew at an average annual rate of 15.5 % between 2009 and 2021.
• According to Innovation Agency Lithuania, more than 94 % of laser production is exported.
• According to Innovation Agency Lithuania, the output is exported to 80 countries; the largest export markets in 2020–2024 were the USA 16.3 %, Germany 14.3 %, China 12.2 %, Japan 6 % and Switzerland 5 %.
• According to Innovation Agency Lithuania, 96 of the world's top 100 universities use Lithuanian lasers.
• According to Innovation Agency Lithuania, the extreme-high-intensity SYLOS laser was created in Lithuania.

CRISPR-Cas9

• Virginijus Šikšnys of Vilnius University shared the 2018 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience with Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna. The citation reads: “For the invention of CRISPR-Cas9, a precise nanotool for editing DNA, causing a revolution in biology, agriculture, and medicine.”