Despite economic crisis, top EU firms cut R&D investment less than US rivals, but Europe still behind; strong pharma showing

The European Commission's 2010 "EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard" shows that R&D investment by top European Union companies fell by 2.6% in 2009, even though sales and profits fell much more, by 10.1% and 21.0% respectively. The fall in R&D investment by leading players in the USA, at 5.1%, was twice as sharp as in the EU, but the worldwide reduction was lower, at 1.9%.

Japanese firms maintained their level of investment. Companies based elsewhere in Asia - China, India, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan - continued the high R&D growth seen in previous years. Japanese car maker Toyota is the world's biggest R&D investor (6.8 billion euros; $9.47 billion) for the second consecutive year. Three EU companies feature in the top ten: Volkswagen, the biggest investor based in Europe with 5.8 billion, Nokia and French drug major Sanofi-Aventis. The Scoreboard covers the top 1,400 companies worldwide.