Serious decline in European industrial R&D investment

The first European industrial R&D investment scoreboard
reveals that investment in R&D by the top 500 European
companies between 2002 and 2003 fell by 2%,
whereas for the non-EU 500 companies it grew by
3.9%.   

Europe is seriously lagging behind in its objective of
increasing investment in research to three per cent of GDP by
the year 2010. The first industrial R&D investment
scoreboard providing a full picture of the competitive situation of
EU firms in the global R&D environment shows that European
R&D investment is declining and highly
concentrated along three dimensions:

• large companies: the top 20 EU companies
  account for more than 55 per cent of the total R&D investment
  by the EU-500.
• few sectors: the four largest sectors in terms
  of R&D investment (automobiles & parts, pharmaceuticals
  & biotechnology, IT hardware, and electronics & electrical
  equipment) account for 67 per cent of the global investment.
• geography: companies with registered head
  offices located in Germany, France and the UK account for 74 per
  cent of the EU-500 R&D investment.

To raise the number of European “industrial R&D
champions we need to create an environment that supports such
investment”, said Janez Poto?nik, the commissioner for science
and research. However, “the commitment of the companies
themselves is crucial”.

The scoreboard, which was produced as part of the
European research investment action plan, makes it possible to
compare research investment among EU companies and sectors, and
with US and Japanese companies.

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