Boosting the EU’s attractiveness to international R&D investments: what matters? What works?

This Policy Brief discusses recent evidence on patterns and trends in the internationalisation of EU corporate R&D activities and the factors which drive location choices. This evidence suggests that boosting international investment in R&D activities requires a combination of policy measures aimed at enhancing the knowledge base of locations, and investment promotion policies tailored to investors from different countries. The policy mix should include measures aiming at improving the efficiency of national and regional innovation systems, particularly through: a) Increasing the quality of education systems and skills, to enable the emergence of centres of research excellence, b) Facilitating the clustering of R&D activities, given the importance of proximity for knowledge spillovers.