This report offers an analysis of the R&I system in Spain for 2016, including relevant policies and funding, with a particular focus on topics of critical importance for EU policies. The report identifies the main challenges of the Spanish research and innovation system and assesses the policy responses implemented. It was prepared according to a set of guidelines for collecting and analysing a range of materials, including policy documents, statistics, evaluation reports and online publications. The quantitative data are, whenever possible, comparable across all EU Member State reports. Unless specifically referenced, all data used in this report are based on Eurostat statistics available in November 2016. The report contents are partly based on the RIO Country Report 2015 (Fernández-Zubieta and Zacharewicz, 2016).