Looking back at the achievements of his ministry during the first year under his watch, Golobic said that in the past this share constantly stood at around 0.6%.
He added that a further increase to 0.85% was planned for 2010 and that the trend would continue so that funding would reach by 2011 or 2012 at the latest the 1% of GDP target laid out as part of Lisbon development goals.
While Golobic said that next year would be "groundbreaking in many ways", also in terms of drawing up new strategic documents, Director General of the Science Directorate Jana Kolar highlighted a new bill on research and development as a key plan for 2010.
Kolar was critical of what she sees as an excessively dispersed policy of funding in the past, which is why the ministry decided to focus funding on "certain key areas...which are also compliant with Slovenian strategic documents".
This goal was already pursued in this year's tender for centres of excellence in the 2009-2013 period, which saw some EUR 77m distributed among eight centres.
Kolar moreover highlighted Slovenia's candidacy for membership in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and efforts to popularise science as part of the ministry's achievements over the past year.
