European R&D spending on the up

Research and development investment from European Union-based companies has increased by 7.4 per cent in the past financial year - but continues to lag behind non-EU competitors.

The R&D spend growth for the top 1,000 non-EU companies was 10 per cent, according to the 2007 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard.

But the latest EU figures are an improvement on 2006 when R&D spending from the top 1,000 EU companies grew by 5.3 per cent.

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EU commissioner for science and research, Janez Potočnik, said the positive upward trend in R&D investment over the last two years is encouraging and claimed the EU's innovation strategy is "on the right track".

But he added the only way for Europe to improve its R&D performance is for more companies to see the benefit of investing.

The Commission attributes part of the gap in investment to the higher growth of R&D intensive sectors outside the EU.

In general, the pharmaceutical and biotech industry overtook the technology hardware and equipment sector for R&D spending growth.

Globally, US car-maker Ford, lost its top spot to pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer which spent €5.8bn. Top in the EU was DaimlerChrysler of Germany with €5.2bn.

In terms of tech companies, Microsoft was fourth of the non-EU companies, investing the equivalent of €5.4bn in R&D. Intel was eighth, spending €4.4bn and IBM was ninth with €4.3bn.

In Europe, Nokia was number six with €3.7bn and Ericsson was ninth, spending just under €3bn.

Other tech companies in the European top 50 include Alcatel Lucent, BT, SAP and Siemens.

In total the 2,000 Scoreboard companies spent €372bn on R&D during the 2006/07 financial year.

The Investment Scoreboard is produced as part of the European Commission's Industrial Research Investment Monitoring activity.