2025 Industrial Research & Development Investment Scoreboard

The 2025 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard provides economic information from the latest financial accounts (Financial Year 2024) of the world's top 2000 R&D investors, as well as the top 800 companies based in the EU. These companies account for over 90% of global R&D funded by the business sector.

EU's Industrial R&D: Health and energy sectors steer growth

R&D investment by EU-headquartered Scoreboard companies reached 233.8 billion euros in 2024. This is an investment growth rate of 2.9%, down from 9.3% in 2023.

Highest investing industrial sectors in the EU were automotive, health and ICT hardware. The sectors with the highest R&D investment growth rate were energy, construction & materials, and health.

ICT, health and automotive industries fuel R&D worldwide

The top 2 000 R&D investing companies worldwide invested a total of EUR 1 446.2 billion in R&D in 2024. Investment increased by EUR 85.8 billion, corresponding to a growth rate of 6.3% compared to last year’s 6.0%.

Four sectors accounted for over 80% of total R&D by the top 2000 companies: ICT software (24.9%), ICT hardware (22.0%), health (19.9%), and automotive (13.6%).

Rising concentration

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

In line with the Commission’s open science practice,  the Scoreboard makes its database publicly available for stakeholders to conduct their benchmarking and monitoring exercises. Here below you can find and download the data from the 2025 Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard in two datasets. One with the world's top 2000 R&D investors (years 2011-2024), and another one with the top 800 companies based in the EU.

EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard (World 2000)

Download All Data World 2000

EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard (top 800 EU)

Download All Data EU 800

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