The 850 largest corporate spenders on R&D in the UK (the UK850) invested £21.6 billion in 2007, 7% more than these companies spent the previous year
Even allowing for inflation, investment in R&D increased significantly. They represent further evidence of the UK’s continued transformation into a knowledge-based economy.
This growth in 2007 was achieved in largely benign economic conditions. Since then, economic uncertainties have increased and it will be interesting to see how far investment in R&D is sustained in the coming years through the global economic slow down.
The 1,400 companies in the world most active in R&D in 2007 (the G1400) invested £274 billion, an increase of 9.5% over the previous year. This R&D was highly concentrated in firms based in five countries; 79% of the investment was undertaken by companies from the USA, Japan, Germany, France and the UK and 1,035 (74%) of the companies come from these countries (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Distribution of R&D expenditure among G1400 by country (2007)
