This report presents the findings of the seventh survey on trends in business R&D investment. These are based on 187 responses of mainly larger companies from the 1000 EU-based companies in the 2011 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. These 187 companies are responsible for R&D investment worth almost €56 billion, constituting around 40% of the total R&D investment by the 1000 EU Scoreboard companies. The main result is that these top R&D investing companies expect their global R&D investments to grow by 4% annually from 2012 to 2014. The average share of sales coming from new innovative products and services was 18%, varying from 33% in high R&D intensity sectors to 10% in low R&D intensity ones. The differences between the sectors were not in all cases related to R&D intensity or net sales of the companies but rather seemed to reflect different sectoral innovation cycles. Collaboration agreements are considered a more important form of knowledge sharing activities than licencing (except for high R&D intensity sectors), which could be a sign of the increasing importance of open innovation. For the impact of factors and policies on the company’s innovation activities, national public support had the most positive effect, followed by availability of qualified personnel and EU public support. As in previous surveys, labour costs and conditions of IPR (enforcement, time and costs) continued to be perceived as negative factors for company innovations. This reveals the importance of fostering an efficient IPR regime for companies’ innovation activities.
