The 2023 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard

This is the 20th edition of ‘The EU Industrial Research & Development (R&D) Investment Scoreboard’. The European Commission issued the first edition of the Scoreboard in 2004 to monitor and analyse industrial R&D investment trends in the context of the EU’s 3% of GDP R&D investment policy target, which remains a key performance indicator of the EU’s long-term competitiveness. This report is structured in two parts. Part I provides an overview of the world's top 2 500 R&D investors, responsible for over three quarters of R&D performed by the business sector globally, based on the financial information in the firms’ latest published audited accounts. It analyses the main trends and benchmarks the EU’s top R&D investing companies against global competitors, and gives details on the EU’s top 1 000 R&D investing firms. For the first time, a panel of Scoreboard firms allows insights into structural R&D trends over the past 10 and 20 years. This sheds light on the strategic role played by R&D through the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Part II combines the Scoreboard data with other datasets to gain novel insights into the technological advancement of the companies. For example, as Scoreboard firms own two-thirds of the patents filed in the five largest patent offices. Characterising the patent portfolios of Scoreboard firms in automotive, advanced materials and artificial intelligence provides additional insights into the technological positioning of EU firms.