The UK Government’s annual R&D Scoreboard, which is endorsed by the R&D Society, reports on the patterns and trends of the 850 largest corporate spenders of R&D in the UK and the 1,400 companies in the world most active in R&D, based on R&D expenditure reported in company accounts.

The latest scoreboard, the 2008 DIUS R&D Scoreboard, is published today, and is based on companies’ reported performance up to June 2008 – before the current recession. The R&D Society has published a short summary of the R&D Scoreboard and other Scoreboards on its website.

Highlights include:

• the 850 top-spending UK firms spent £21.6 billion on R&D – a rise of 6.4 per cent on the previous scoreboard.
• The 1,400 companies in the world that spent the most on R&D increased their expenditure by 9.4% to £274 billion. 79% of this expenditure was by companies based in the USA, Japan, Germany, France and the UK.
• The top 88 UK companies, who also rank in the top 1,400 global investors of R&D, increased their R&D investment by 10.3% – more than the rest of the top 1,400 companies.
• The remaining UK companies outside the top 88 grew their R&D by just 1.2% – a fall in real terms.
• The biggest UK sector by spend remains pharmaceuticals and biotechnology (37%), with aerospace and defence, software, automobiles and parts, and fixed line telecommunications the next biggest, each with 6% share.
• Globally, the five biggest sectors were pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, technology hardware, automobiles and parts, software, and electronics.

The R&D Society Chair, David Kingham, has commented on the 2008 R&D Scoreboard:

The overall rise in R&D expenditure by the top 850 UK companies of 6% to £21.6 billion is welcome news, and shows continued confidence in UK companies of the value of R&D to their business. The news that the top 88 UK companies, who also rank in the top 1,400 global investors of R&D, increased their R&D investment by 10.3%, is offset by the Scoreboard’s findings that the remaining companies outside the top 88 grew their R&D by just 1.2% – a fall in real terms.

It is not clear from the Scoreboard whether this reflects cuts in R&D activity or smarter spending by these companies, increasing their R&D efficiency. Given that these figures are from a time period prior to the current recession, we urge the Government to keep a close eye on the R&D activities of UK companies, and maintain and improve their efforts to support UK R&D.

We endorse the R&D Scoreboard as a useful tool to enable companies to benchmark their R&D efforts with their peers. Investment in R&D is necessary for the long-term growth of many companies, and now is not the time for the Government to be distracted by short term financial difficulties at the expense of long-term, R&D-based improvements.

As the Scoreboard reports on UK companies’ R&D expenditure for their 2007 or 2007/8 financial year – before the UK officially went into recession – we’d be interested to hear how UK R&D is coping now?

Are companies cutting back on their R&D expenditure, keeping it the same, or ramping it up in an effort to beat the competition?

Talk on here, or in confidence to me by private message.