Businesses plan to spend more on R&D

The European Union's Joint Research Centre (JRC) has been asking companies about their R&D plans for the near future. The results, according to a note on the Cordis information service, suggest "that business investment in research and development (R&D) will increase by as much as five per cent per year for the next three years".

 

There's a link to the full report on the Industrial Research & Innovation website. We read there that the results "are drawn from the responses received from 449 companies" these cover ten sectors and are responsible for a total global R&D investment of almost €30 billion, "which is a significant share of European business investment in R&D".

 

The big factor in all of this seems to be the plans in the pharmaceuticals sector, which accounts for 60% of the total R&D investment of all companies in the sample.

 

Why are businesses interested in spending more on R&D? "The incentives to increase R&D investment most often cited in the responses are: changes in market demand for new products and services, changes in technological opportunities, and changes in company turnover or profit. Changes in the availability and labour costs of researchers are the least often cited incentives for increasing R&D investment."

 

Another headline point is that "Companies outsource an average of 18% of their R&D investment. Around two thirds of this amount goes to other companies and one third to public research organisations." Once again, the pharma sector is ahead of the pack here.

 

One further finding will confirm the fears of British observers worried by the boom in foreign takeovers that has shifted many an HQ out of the UK. "The survey confirms the view that companies continue to prefer to locate R&D in their home country. Therefore, the top locations for R&D activity in Europe continue to be Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Outside the EU, the US remained by far the most attractive place for locating R&D activity, followed by China and India."