EU firms lagging behind global competitors on innovation
The ‘EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard’ shows that investment in research and development (R&D) by top EU companies recovered strongly in 2010, with a 6.1% rise following a 2.6% decrease in 2009.
But data for the world’s top 1400 companies show EU companies as a whole are ‘lagging behind major competitors from the US and some Asian economies on R&D growth’, said the EU.
US companies increased R&D investment by 10% in 2010, after a 5.1% decrease in 2009. Companies from some Asian countries continued to show ‘very strong growth’ in R&D investment levels, including 29.5% within China and 20.5% for those from South Korea.
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Global R&D investment increased by 4% last year, following a 1.9% decrease in 2009.
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science said: “The upturn in R&D investment by EU companies is a positive signal as we seek to boost growth and jobs through innovation in Europe. However, the fact that we are still lagging behind some global competitors shows we have to improve conditions for business further, in line with our Innovation Union goals. We need quick adoption and implementation of recent and up-coming European Commission proposals on the unitary patent, on standards, public procurement and risk capital.”
Of the global top 50 R&D investment firms, 15 are EU-based companies, 18 are US firms and 13 are from Japan.
Two pharmaceutical companies, Roche from Switzerland with €7.2bn and Pfizer from the US with €7bn, were the top investors.
In sixth place Volkswagen is the biggest EU investor in R&D with €6.3bn. The car manufacturer is followed by Nokia in 11th place with €4.9bn, Daimler in 13th with €4.8bn and Sanofi-Aventis in 14th with €4.4bn.
Of the 1400 analysed 400 are from the EU and the rest from outside the union.
More than two thirds of R&D investment of EU Scoreboard companies comes from those located in the three biggest member states—Germany, France and the UK—with German companies showing the highest one-year growth at 8.1%. This is mostly due to a few automotive companies including Daimler, Volkswagen and BMW.
UK companies’ R&D investment growth was 5.8%, close to the EU average, compared to 3.8% for French companies.
In other member states, a few large players account for high shares of R&D investment growth. These include Novo Nordisk (27.3%) and Vestas (49.8%) in Denmark and Banco Santander (56.3%), Telefonica (16%) and Amadeus (33.2%) in Spain.
Fast growing companies such as TomTom (Netherlands) in the electronic equipment sector, Autonomy (UK) and Gameloft (France) in software and Morphosys (Germany) in biotech, are highlighted as success stories showing a very good performance in 2010.
