Europe Leads U.S. and Japan in Corporate R&D Spending for 2008
Corporate R&D spending rose globally by 6.9 percent in 2008, according to the “2009 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard.” The Scorecard, published annually by the European Commission, covers the top 1000 EU companies and 1000 non-EU companies investing in R&D in the last reporting year.
With an 8.1 percent increase, the R&D investment growth of EU companies is significantly higher than US companies for the second year at 5.7 percent and Japanese companies at 4.4 percent. EU companies managed to maintain their R&D investment growth barely unchanged at 8.1 percent from 8.8 percent in 2007, whereas that of US companies fell from 8.6 percent in 2007 to 5.7 percent in 2008. Companies based in emerging economies continued to show the highest R&D growth, led by China with a 40 percent increase, India (27.3 percent), Taiwan (25.1 percent) and Brazil (18.6 percent).
“It is good news that EU companies kept up their R&D investment against the background of the economic crisis in 2008. This is the best strategy to emerge stronger out of the crisis . . . I also welcome the increase of R&D investment by EU companies active on low carbon energy technologies. They represent new sources of EU growth and jobs”, said European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik.
The world’s biggest investor in R&D was Toyota Motor, with €7.61 billion. Among the top ten R&D investors there are five from the US, including Microsoft, General Motors and Pfizer. Two EU companies ranked in the Top 10: Volkswagen in the 3rd place with an R&D investment of €5.93 billion and Nokia in the 8th place.
The R&D growth in the US is dominated by the high R&D intensity sectors, which includes Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology and IT sectors, while R&D growth in the EU is more evenly spread across all sectors. This year’s Scoreboard confirms the strong R&D activity of companies active in renewable energy technologies.
