According to the 2007 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, an EU sponsored report listing the top 1,000 R&D investors in the EU and comparing their research spending with the top 1,000 outside the EU, only three EU companies make the top ten for global investment in  research and development (Daimler Chrysler, GlaxosSmithKline, and engineering firm Siemens). This is telling information as the comparison of research spending between the EU and the rest of the world is an important indicator utilised to measure the EU's progress in the Lisbon Strategy- becoming the most competitive economy in the world by 2010.

The Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard is an annual project of the Industrial Research & Innovation (IRI) initiative, an Action within the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), one of the seven scientific institutes of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) The aim of the Action is to support EU policy-makers and other stakeholders in the implementation of the "3% Action Plan" (contributing 3% of GDP in all member states to R&D) and to follow-up actions recently proposed by the European Commission on research and innovation.

Though EU based firms have increased their spending on R&D in recent years, this augmentation does not mirror that of the EU competitors (The EU increased spending 5.3% in 2005 whereas non-EU competitors increased 7.7%).

Press Release