UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

European Union
Table 9.6: EU and US companies in selected R&D-intensive sectors, 2013
Industry Number of companies R&D (€ millions) R&D intensity (%)*
EU USA EU USA EU USA
Health
Pharmaceuticals 47 46 26781.9 29150.0 13.2 14.0
Biotechnology 20 98 1238.4 12287.3 16.0 27.2
Health care equipment & services 23 54 2708.2 7483.5 4.4 3.8
Software & services
Software 33 86 4797.2 22413.9 14.8 15.0
Computer services 15 46 1311.1 6904.8 5.2 6.9
Internet 2 20 97.6 8811.5 6.3 14.3
* R&D intensity is defined as R&D expenditure divided by net sales.
Source: Extracted from Hernández et al. (2014), Table 4.5
Figure 9.5: Employment by R&D intensity, 2005 and 2013 (%)
6
5
5.4
4.8
5.0
Number of employees (millions)
4
3
2
2.0
2.8
3.7
4.3
3.2 3.2 3.2
4.0
1.5
1
0.8
0.9
1.2 1.2
0.9
1.0
0
2005
2013 2005 2013 2005 2013 2005 2013 2005 2013 2005 2013 2005 2013 2005 2013 2005 2013
EU USA Japan EU USA Japan EU USA Japan
High R&D density Medium-high Medium-low & low
Note: The data concern 476 EU companies, 525 US companies and 362 Japanese companies out of the world’s top 2 500 companies according to the EU R&D
Scoreboard.
Source: Hernández et. al (2014), Figure S3
Making it easier for companies to innovate
Europe has been a major producer of new knowledge but it
has performed less well in turning new ideas into commercially
successful new products and processes. Science and innovation
face a more fragmented market than large economies
comprised of only one nation state, such as the USA or Japan
(Figure 9.6). The EU thus needs a common research policy to
avoid duplicating research efforts in different member states.
EU research policy has had a strong focus on innovation since
2010, thanks to the introduction of the Innovation Union flagship
project and the launch, in 2014, of Horizon 2020, the biggest EU
research and innovation framework programme ever (European
Commission, 2014b). The Innovation Union is one of the EU’s
seven flagship projects for reaching its Europe 2020 targets
(Table 9.7). This name covers 34 commitments and related
deliverables designed to remove the obstacles to innovation –
Chapter 9
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