Importance The knowledge economy mainly pursues the transition to innovation, which are impossible without investment in human capital, advanced R&D, thus accelerating the development of the high-tech sector and drifting from uncontrollable economic growth to sustainable development. Objectives The research examines how R&D and human capital influence sustainable development. Methods The research is based on statistical data of development programs adopted by the UN, World Bank, UNESCO, Eurostat. Relying upon the data, we perform a cluster analysis of various groups of States and study them by socio-economic development, level of high-tech sector, human capital. OriginPro 8.6 is used to visualize the findings. Results Economic growth and public wellbeing were found to be more and more dependent on accumulated advanced knowledge and information resources, with the man, human mind and scientific ideas being the cornerstone for them. The human capital quality can be compared with economic growth. Therefore, investment in human capital will foster economic growth. Conclusions and Relevance Contemporary society creates appropriate conditions for economic growth by ensuring high labor productivity, technological retrofitting of production processes, development of modern communication means. However, economic growth is insufficient to curb the poverty, unless it is general and includes three UN aspects of sustainable development, i.e. economic, social and environmental.
Keywords: human capital, economic growth, sustainable development, R&D, high technology
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