trends in frontier technologies which are fundamentally enabled by the internet and icts are superimposed on a world with existing technological divides both between and within nations this is vital to understanding who is lagging how far behind and to identifying measures to mitigate such divisions responding adequately to such challenges will require capabilities increasing rd intensity remains a longterm objective worldwide in the european union for example the europe target for rd is per cent of gdp in only four european union member countries finland sweden denmark and austria met this target eurostat while it has increased significantly in some regions rd intensity in most developing countries is much lower than either the world average or that of developed countries in europe and north america which exceeds per cent