68 5.6.1 ICT Research Latvia has one of the lowest funding for research and development in the EU Member States, which, according to the Central Statistical Bureau in 2011 was 0.70% of GDP (compared to - the EU average of 2.0% of GDP in 2010). Private sector funding for research and development in 2011 was only 25% of the total research and development funding. In addition, the Latvian indicators of investment in research and development is still lagging behind the Latvian National Reform Programme “Europe 2020” strategy for the implementation of a given target, which until 2015 provides to increase the amount of Latvian total investment in research and development up to 1% of GDP (in 2020 – 1.5% of GDP). Analysing the overall availability of human resources in research and development area51, it can be concluded that: * Latvia has a small number of people employed in research and development (0.57% of employees in 201052), its sectoral breakdown does not stimulate the commercialisation of knowledge; * aging has been observed among Doctors of Sciences, but new specialists in the so far failed to provide the reproduction of academic and scientific personnel; * lack of natural sciences, engineering and technology students, number of persons with higher education and doctoral degrees, who could develop and implement new technologies; * proportion of university graduates aged 30 to 34 years, as well as the total number of students in the country provide the workforce with sufficiently high qualification for implementation of research results and development of innovative enterprises; * increasing number of PhD graduates that attracts additional human resources for science, forms the basis for the development and production of high-tech products; thus, promoting economic development on the basis of innovation. Computer Science, Information Technology, Electronics and Telecommunications Computer science, information technology, electronics and telecommunications are developed by Latvian universities and other scientific institutions, as well as by ICT sector companies with the full or partial support of EU Structural funds. The main objectives in the context of Latvia: * participation in performance of basic studies. For such small country as Latvia it is impossible to become a part of all directions of basic research. It supports the development of individual ICT directions in Latvia, which has scientist collectives working on world-class productions. State support is implemented as an administrative, organisational and financial support (co-financing) to those projects, which within the cross-border cooperation include collectives of Latvian scientists performing basic research; * performance of applied research, which initiates the development of new advanced ICT products and technologies that afterwards are implemented within the framework of innovation. Applied research should be concentrated in certain directions, which support the transfer of knowledge to innovative enterprises in order to develop this knowledge to the level of competitive export product. For example, the relevant actions are operation process modelling and optimisation, interoperability of information systems, security, cloud computing, as well as 51 http://www.birti.eu/lv/jaunumi/item/download/16_fb21605a174bebb826f6a35c73ad109c http://www.birti.eu/lv/jaunumi/item/download/16_fb21605a174bebb826f6a35c73ad109c information_society_development_guidelines_2014_2020.docx; Information Society Development Guidelines 2014-2020 52