UK Research and Development: Reports and statistics
The UK R&D Scoreboard
The UK Government's annual R&D
Scoreboard, which is endorsed
by the R&D Society, reports annually on the patterns and trends of the 850 largest corporate spenders of R&D in the UK and the 1,250 companies in the world most active in R&D, based on R&D expenditure reported in company accounts.
The latest scoreboard, the 2007 DIUS R&D Scoreboard, published November 2007, reports that the 850 top-spending UK firms spent almost £21 billion on R&D - a rise of 9 per cent. The 75 biggest firms increased their R&D spend by 12 per cent, in part due to the UK world-leading status in pharmaceutical R&D. This growth is mainly due to increases in the pharmaceuticals, fixed line telecommunications, and aerospace and defence and banking. These 75 firms account for two-thirds of the £21 billion spend, with the remaining 775 firms increasing R&D spend by only 3.4% compared with last year. Figures for smaller firms show 95 more firms invested over £0.5m in R&D compared with last year, and invest more in R&D as a proportion of sales than their larger peers. Listed companies (ie those with shareholders) increased their R&D by 12.4% compared with a 0.9% increase for unlisted companies. The top UK sectors by R&D spend were pharmaceuticals, aerospace and defence, software, fixed line telecommunications, automobiles and banks. The sectors that saw the greatest increases in R&D expenditure were travel and leisure, fixed line telecommunications, mining, mobile telecommunications, household goods and banking.
The Government als publishes the 2007 DTI Value Added Scoreboard lists the top 800 UK companies and the top 750 global companies by Value Added - the amount of wealth created by a company in a year. It gives R&D intensity for companies listed by value added.
In Scotland: The Science and Innovation Strategy for Scotland
The The Science and Innovation Strategy for Scotland notes that in 2003, Scotland's businesses on average invested in R&D at around half the rate as in the UK as a whole; at 40% of the OECD average; and at 30% of the target in the European Union for 2010. Over the last 6 years there has been some improvement in our figures, but clearly much remains to be done. Our investment data are also particularly volatile because much investment is concentrated in a small number of firms in a small number of sectors, many of them foreign-owned. Losing one or two of these firms could seriously reduce the Scottish figures but, conversely, attracting one or two major firms willing to spend substantial amounts on R&D could improve the figures dramatically.
The EU Industrial R&D Scoreboard and the EU Scoreboard
The 2007 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard released in early October 2007, presents information on 2000 companies from around the world reporting major investments in R&D - 1000 based in the EU and 1000 based elsewhere in the world. EU-based companies increased their R&D by 7.4%, up from 2006's 5.3% figure - but still lower than those based outside the EU.
The EU Scoreboard, released December 2005, compared countries' performance on innovation on 26 individual indicators of innovation, entrepreneurship and knowledge creation and intellectual property. The UK ranks 7th in the EU, and 10th in Europe, with Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany considered "leading countries" and France, Ireland, the UK, Belgium, Austria, Norway and Italy all "average". The Scoreboard identifies the UK's strengths to be "well above average results" for science and engineering graduates and lifelong learning, venture capital, total innovation expenditures, ICT expenditures, employment in high technology services, and in triadic patents. The report authors note that UK venture capital "has declined by half since 2001, but the amount of decline is less than in other EU countries."
The OECD Scoreboard
The OECD Science, Technology
and Industry (STI) Scoreboard 2005, released November 2005, compares
countries' performance in the areas of science, technology, globalisation
and industry. The 30 OECD member countries, and several other countries,
are included in the analysis. The three-page
UK Country note accompanying the Scoreboard (pdf, free) notes that the
UK was the sixth-largest global spender on R&D in 2003, spending almost
34 billion USD, behind the United States, Japan, China, Germany, and France.
In terms of R&D intensity, the UK's 1.9% of GDP in 2003 is below that of
key competitors such as Japan (3.2%), Germany and the United States (2.6%),
France (2.2%), and the EU-15 average (2.0%). The report noted that the UK
"plays an important role in international co-operation in patenting",
with UK residents re the EU's main foreign owners of domestic inventions
from Australia, India, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.
The UK's strengths in science and engineering were noted - the number of
papers published per capita is very high, a higher proportion of science
and engineering degrees are awarded in the UK than the OECD average, and
particularily the USA. Foreign affiliates account for 31.5% of manufacturing
R&D in the United Kingdom, which is substantially above Japan (only 3.8%),
the United States (18%), France (22%) and Germany (25.6%), but behind Canada
(37.9%). Knowledge-intensive services, such as telecommunications, finance,
insurance and business services, now account for almost 23% of UK value
added, which is the fourth highest share in the OECD, with only Switzerland,
Luxembourg and the United States having a larger share. High-technology
industries, such as pharmaceuticals, aircraft, ICT equipment and precision
instruments, account for almost 35% of UK manufacturing exports. The United
Kingdom accounted for just over 4% of worldwide value added in manufacturing
in 2002, making it the sixth-largest manufacturing nation in the world.
China accounted for about 8%, making it the third-largest manufacturing
economy in the world, behind Japan and the United States, but ahead of Germany
and France.