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EU companies’ R&D investment grows faster than global and US trends

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2017

Abstract

Type
Article Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2017 

The “2016 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard,” published by the European Commission, shows that EU companies invested €188.3 billion in R&D in fiscal year 2015/2016. This constitutes an annual increase of 7.5%, which puts EU companies ahead of the global (6.6%) and US (5.9%) trends.

Global industrial R&D investment reached €696 billion worldwide, with sectors such as software, information technology (IT), pharmaceuticals, and automobiles fostering R&D investments and sales. Overall sales, however, declined 3.6% worldwide, mostly due to the performance of low-tech sectors, particularly oil and mining, which suffered from low commodity prices.

Thirty EU companies are among the world’s top 100 R&D investors, mainly in the fields of automobiles, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, information communications technology, and aerospace and defense. The top investors are based in Germany (€69.8 billion), France (€28.5 billion), the UK (€28.2 billion), and The Netherlands (€14.1 billion).

Asian companies showed the highest increases in R&D, especially those based in China (up by 24.7% to €49.8 billion), although their sales decreased as well. Globally, the software sector showed the highest year-on-year growth in R&D, of 12.3%, followed by pharmaceuticals (9.8%), IT hardware (7.6%), and automobiles (6.7%).

The Scoreboard is accompanied by a survey of the 1000 top R&D investors based in the EU. It shows that R&D investments are expected to fall in the coming years in the automobile and parts sector (–0.8%) while growth of 7–8% is expected in high-tech sectors, specifically in health care, pharmaceuticals, and technology hardware.

The “EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard,” published annually by the European Commission (DG Research & Innovation and DG Joint Research Centre) collects companies’ key R&D and economic indicators. The 2016 edition reviews the performance of the top 2500 R&D investing companies in the world, which account for around 90% of the total R&D financed by business. A focus on the top 1000 R&D investors in the EU is also included. The Scoreboard is accompanied by the “2016 EU Survey on Industrial R&D Investment Trends.”