EU private R&D investment growth has reached the highest rate since 2015 and more than doubled compared to 2021, with 13.6% increase in 2022. In comparison, China has decreased its growth from over 25% to just over 16% and US companies slowed down from 16% to 12.6%.
The world’s top 2500 R&D investors monitored by the Scoreboard set a new record for total R&D investment, reaching almost €1250 billion, €141 billion more than in 2021. Overall, US companies are responsible for over 42% of the R&D investment of the largest 2500 corporate R&D investors, while the EU and China closely compete for second place (17.5% and 17.8%, respectively).
EU stronghold in automotive, increased importance of ICT and biotech
Information and communications technology (ICT) producers, ICT services, health and automotive are responsible for more than three quarters of Scoreboard companies R&D investment.
More than a third of companies and 43% of global R&D investment come from the ICT producers and ICT services sectors, reflecting the increasing importance of digitalisation. While the ICT producers sector constitutes the largest sector in investment, the ICT services sector has been the fastest growing in the past decade.
Health constitutes more than a fifth of global R&D investment and has the most companies among the world’s top R&D investors. It has increased significantly in the recent years, primarily driven by new biotech companies, coming mainly from the US. Investment by EU pharmaceutical companies has grown at a similar pace to US companies but remains around half their R&D investment level.
The EU continues to lead in R&D investments by the automotive sector (42.2%) worldwide. It is followed by Japan and the US at 19.5% each, and China at 12.8%, which has doubled its number of automotive firms in this ranking over the past decade. On the technological side, the EU leads in green high-value patenting (68%) and in clean transport technologies (29 %) closely followed by Japan and the US (27% respectively).