Brussels, 22/01/2009 (Agence Europe) - The 2008 Science, Technology and Competitiveness report, published at the same time as the innovation scoreboard, provides an in-depth assessment of public and private R&D, technological performance and progress made between 2000 and 2006 in R&D spending in the EU, and the implementation of the European Research Area (ERA).
While, as a percentage of the working population, the EU has fewer researchers than its competitors, their number is rising twice as quickly as those of the United States and Japan since 2000. The EU is, in addition, the most attractive zone for foreign investors and science and technology professionals. It is attracting a growing private investment from the United States, despite the rise of Asia as a new centre: in 2005, US affiliates made 62.5% of their R&D investment in the EU, compared with only 3.3% in China. The EU is also attracting a growing number of professionals from other countries. The EU remains the world's largest producer of scientific knowledge (measured by publications), but contributes less than the US to high impact publications.
However, although most member states have increased their R&D expenditure and have made their research sector more efficient between 2000 and 2006, the EU is still far from the Lisbon target of spending 3% of GDP on R&D, with no improvement on 1.84% of GDP since 2005. There are, however, considerable differences from one member state to another: over the period, 17 member states, most in the catching-up phase, have increased their R&D intensity , while 10 others, representing 47% of European GDP, have recorded the opposite move. At the same time, Japan, South Korea and China have increased their R&D intensity from 3.04% to 3.39%, from 2.39% to 3.23% and from 0.90% to 1.42% respectively. European private sector R&D investment intensity remains too low, even falling between 2000 and 2005 while there were rises in the US, Japan and China. This may be explained by the fact that the EU has a smaller high-tech sector than the US.
The report is available at: http: //ec.europa.eu/research/era/ (E.H./transl.rt)