The 2010 EU Survey on R&D Investment Business Trends

This report presents the findings of the sixth survey on trends in business R&D investment. These are based on 205 responses of mainly larger companies from the 1000 EU-based companies in the 2010 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. These 205 companies are responsible for R&D investment worth almost €40 billion, constituting around 30% of the total R&D investment by the 1000 EU Scoreboard companies. The main result is that top R&D investing companies in the EU expect their global R&D investments to grow by 5 % annually from 2011 to 2013. This is more than double the rate of last year's expectations, and represents a significant upturn from the 2.6 % R&D investment cuts observed for these companies in 2009. Companies surveyed expect their R&D investment inside the EU to grow 3 % a year over the next three years, although this remains the lowest rate compared to what they expect to invest in R&D in other world regions, especially in Asian countries like China (25%) or India (8%), but also in the US and Canada (5%).