The 2025 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard reveals a slowdown in overall R&D investment growth among EU companies. Against this trend, the European health and energy sectors increased their R&D investments well above global peers.
Produced since 2004 by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in collaboration with the Directorate General Research & Innovation, the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard provides economic information from the latest financial accounts of the world’s top 2000 R&D investors. It also includes an extended sample of the top 800 R&D investing companies based in the EU. Investments from the companies covered in the Scoreboard account for almost 90% of global private R&D funding.
EU: Health and energy sectors shine in a year of slowdown
In 2024, EU-headquartered companies reported a total R&D investment of €233.8 billion. This is an investment growth rate of 2.9%, down from 9.3% in 2023.
Despite this overall slowdown, there were bright spots in specific sectors. EU companies in the health sector increased R&D investments by 13%, outperforming other regions such as the United States (7.1%), Japan (9.1%), and China (0.1%). Similarly, the EU’s energy sector, especially companies focusing on electricity and renewable energy, experienced a 19.8% increase, outpacing global competitors like the United States (6%), Japan (-14.2%), and China (3.8%).
However, performance varied across sectors. The EU ICT sector declined investments by 8.9%. Meanwhile, the automotive industry, the EU’s largest R&D investor at €87 billion, showed stagnation (0.8% growth rate), lagging behind China (11.9%) and Japan (12.3%) growth rates.
ICT, health and automotive industries fuel R&D worldwide
Globally, R&D investment continues to rise. In 2024, the top 2,000 global companies invested €1,442.6 billion in R&D, marking a 6.3% growth rate, slightly above the previous year’s 6.0%. The United States and the rest of the world (ROW) experienced the highest growth rates, with 7.8% and 8.1% respectively, followed by Japan at 7.1%. In contrast, the EU’s growth was more moderate at 2.9%, closely matching China’s 3.9%.
Sector-wise, R&D investments remain heavily concentrated in four key areas: ICT software, ICT hardware, health industries, and automotive. Together, these four sectors account for over 80% of the total Scoreboard R&D investment. US firms continue to dominate in ICT-related sectors and health, while EU companies retain a global lead in automotive R&D.
Concentration of innovation and profits
Global R&D investment is becoming increasingly concentrated, driven largely by the top 5 investing companies (Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Apple). Over the past decade, these companies doubled their share of global R&D investment, now accounting for approximately 15% of the total R&D investment. This concentration is mirrored in profits, rising from 3% to 15% between 2011 and 2024. The concentration of such innovation and business capacity in a handful of companies raises questions of market dynamism and broader innovation diffusion within the global economy.
Scoreboard dataset publicly available
The Scoreboard provides a reliable, up-to-date benchmarking tool for comparisons between companies, sectors, and geographical areas, as well as to monitor and analyse emerging investment trends and patterns. It is based on company data extracted directly from each company’s annual report.
Its annual publication has become a reference for science, industry and policy actors. It has contributed to numerous publications of European and international institutions, including the Draghi and Heitor Reports, the Science, Research & Innovation Performance Report and the yearly European Investment Bank Investment Reports.
The Scoreboard emphasises open data practices, making its database publicly available for stakeholders to conduct their benchmarking and monitoring exercises, in accordance with the Commission’s open science practice.
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Find out the report, the dataset and a visual dashboard on JRC’s economics of industrial research and innovation web page.
