Despite almost unprecedentedly difficult economic conditions R&D investment remains an important strategic priority for top firms worldwide, including in Ireland. In fact, R&D spending in Ireland is up 13%. Ireland has 16 companies in the top 1000 companies for R&D spending in the EU in the year 2009 (up from 12 companies in 2008) . The UK, France and Germany are the top EU spenders on R&D.
Today's figures come from the European Commission's 2010 "EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard" . It shows that R&D investment by top EU companies fell by 2.6% in 2009, even though sales and profits fell much more, by 10.1% and 21.0% respectively.
In contrast, US spending dropped by 5.1 % while Asian companies maintained or increased R&D levels.
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Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science said: "The fact that major EU firms have largely maintained their R&D investment shows that they recognise R&D as key to emerging stronger from the crisis. But the wide gap with the top US companies in areas like software and biotechnology and the continuing rapid rise of Asian-based companies highlight the innovation emergency Europe is facing. We urgently need heads of state and government at the December European Council to back the Innovation Union proposals that Antonio Tajani and I announced on 6 October."
The fall in R&D investment by leading players in the US, 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 (€6.8bn) for the second consecutive year.
Three EU companies feature in the top ten: Volkswagen, the biggest investor based in Europe with €5.8bn, Nokia and Sanofi-Aventis. The Scoreboard covers the top 1400 companies worldwide.
Within the EU group overall, there are 918 companies based in the top 10 Member States that account for 97.2% of the total R&D investment of the EU Scoreboard companies (compared with 98.1% in 2008). Within the top 10 countries, the German, French and UK companies constitute more than two thirds of the total R&D investment of the EU (see Table 11).
The rest of companies (82) are based in Austria (31), Ireland (16), Portugal (8), and Luxembourg (8), along with a further 7 Member States.
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