BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Europe's industry has increased its investment in research and development by 9.8 percent in 2023, surpassing the growth of corporate R&D investment in the US (+5.9 percent) and China (+9.6 percent) for the first time in a decade, according to the new edition of the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard.
In 2023, the EU was second globally in R&D private investment, trailing the United States, but ahead of China, Japan and countries in the rest of the world. Despite slowing global R&D growth, the top 2000 companies invested a record 1257.7 billion Euros on R&D in 2023. The top 50, among them 11 EU companies, contributed 40.1 percent of investments, revealing a strong concentration of R&D in the biggest players.
The European Union leads R&D investments in automotive sector, a stronghold for the 27-nation bloc, which is the largest trade bloc in the world.
In the automotive sector, companies headquartered in the EU accounted for 45.4 percent of global R&D investment of the sector in 2023 and invested more than twice as much as their US and Japanese peers, and more than three times as much as Chinese competitors. On the other hand, the R&D investment of EU ICT software companies remained marginal on the global scale, whereas US-based firms constitute 70 percent of the sector's global R&D and China has established significant R&D-investing companies.
At the same time, the health sector has the largest number of companies in the top 2000, with 437 companies, including smaller biotech ones. Among them, 238 US-based companies are leading in health R&D, the European Commission said in a press release.
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