The main aim of the paper is to investigate the empirical relationship between research and development (R&D) expenditures and economic growth in the European Union member states in the period of 2000–2013. The empirical analysis is based on panel data regressions. The estimated model is the production function type standard growth model extended with R&D stock variable. The results show a statistically significant impact of R&D expenditures on the economic growth in the EU countries. The significance for R&D coefficient remains robust to different sub-periods, but the level of significance decreases as a sub-sample of new EU countries was considered.