UK publishes 18th annual R&D scoreboard

The 850 UK firms making the largest investment R&D in 2007 grew their R&D by 6 per cent to £21.6 billion in the last year, according to the 18th annual R&D scoreboard published earlier this week by the UK government

The 88 UK companies that carry out the most R&D, and which are amongst the 1,400 largest global investors, increased their investment by an average of 10.3 per cent.

In contrast, R&D spending by other smaller UK investors amongst the 850 most active UK companies grew only 1.2 per cent.

Oil and gas production was the fastest growing sector in 2007, increasing spending by 36 per cent, while the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology sector remained the largest investor overall in R&D in the UK.

Pharmaceuticals & biotechnology companies also remained the biggest investors in R&D worldwide, having remained ahead of firms in the technology sector.

The 2008 R&D Scoreboard draws on data on R&D expenditure and other measures of financial performance taken from the published accounts of UK-based and global companies. It uses the latest accounts as of 28 July 2008, and largely refers to business activity in 2007.

The UK’s forest and paper sector showed the fastest growth in R&D spending over the last year, up by 871 per cent. Pharmaceuticals remained the largest sector and was up by 7 per cent over the previous year. Of the sectors making the most significant investment in R&D, firms in both the oil and gas producing sector reported average R&D growth of 36 per cent, the banking sector reported average R&D growth of 19 per cent.

UK aerospace, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and software and technology firms invested substantially more in R&D than they earned as profits.

The UK’s 88 biggest R&D investors conducted two thirds of the UK850’s R&D. They grew their R&D by 10.3 per cent over the previous year whereas their global peers averaged a 9.5 percent increase.

The Global Picture

Global R&D spending by the 1,400 biggest corporate spenders rose by 9.5 per cent to £274 billion. It continues to be dominated by companies registered in just five countries, the US, Japan, Germany, France and the UK. Globally, average R&D intensity remains broadly similar at 3.3 per cent of sales.

R&D investment in the global pharmaceuticals sector grew by 12 per cent in the last year and remains the largest global R&D sector. Other rapidly growing sectors are software and technology and computer hardware which grew at more than 12 per cent.