EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 2013
The European Commission has published its 2013 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. The Scoreboard is based on a sample of 2,000 companies representing the world’s top investors in R&D and accounting for more than 90% of the total expenditure on R&D by businesses worldwide.
Leading global R&D investors increased their investment by 6.2% in 2012, more than the net sales growth of 4.2%. The 527 EU companies increased R&D investment and net sales by 6.3% and 4.3% respectively; EU companies invested €158bn in 2012, equivalent to 29.3% of the overall investment in R&D by the Scoreboard companies. The 658 US companies reported a higher increase in R&D (8.2%), but net sales grew only by 2.9%.
Companies based in the top ten R&D investing member states account for 97.3% of the total R&D of the top 1,000 EU companies (these all have R&D investments exceeding €5.2m). Those based in Germany, the top R&D investor, continued the good performance shown in the past year, increasing R&D in 2012 above the top 2,000 world R&D investors’ average, at 11.6%. Companies based in the UK and France did not perform as well, increasing R&D by 0.5% and 2.3% respectively.
Among the ten largest EU countries (by R&D investment of Scoreboard companies based in that country), those companies that increased R&D above the EU’s average were Italy (18.3%), Ireland (10.7%), the Netherlands (7.7%) and Sweden (6.7%). Companies based in three countries decreased R&D in 2012: Finland (-10.3%); Denmark (-3.0%); and Spain (-2.1%).
A company based in the EU leads the world R&D ranking for the first time since 2004. The German car manufacturer Volkswagen invested €9.5bn in R&D.
