European companies can do better in R&D, Brussels report says

European Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Member of the EC in charge of Research, Innovation and Science, on Tuesday presented the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, saying that European companies are ‘doing well’ but that they ‘can be doing better’. The EU scoreboard shows that R&D investment 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 lagging behind major competitors from the US and some Asian economies on R&D growth. There was a general positive trend in 2010, as global R&D investment increased by 4%, a robust up-turn after the 1.9% drop observed in 2009. The global top 50 in terms of total R&D investment includes 15 EU companies, 18 US firms and 13 from Japan, according to the European Commission. Two pharmaceutical companies occupied the top spots: Roche from Switzerland (€7.2bn) followed by Pfizer from the US (€7bn). Volkswagen (€6.3bn), in sixth place, is the biggest EU investor in R&D, followed by Nokia (11th with €4.9bn), Daimler (13th with €4.8bn) and Sanofi-Aventis (14th with €4.4bn).