Estimating territorial business R&D expenditures using corporate R&D and patent data

This note describes a methodology to estimate territorial business R&D expenditure funded by the business sector, using R&D and patent data from top R&D investing companies. Since company data are available with a short delay, the aim is to provide timeliness estimations for business R&D in anticipation of its publication by official statistics. The estimation is made for worldwide industrial R&D expenditure, breaking down figures for main world regions and focusing on the EU and the member states where most of the top R&D investing companies have their headquarters (Germany, France and the UK). The industrial coverage comprises main innovative industries, focusing on manufacturing and knowledge intensive services.