Wednesday 25 October 2017

CORPORATE R&D SPENDING HITS RECORD HIGHS FOR THE TOP 1000, DESPITE CONCERNS OF ECONOMIC PROTECTIONISM

- Annual worldwide R&D spending breaks through $700bn for the top 1000 corporate R&D spenders for first time
- 25% of executives surveyed reported having already experienced some pressure to change how or where they conduct innovation
- Amazon is the world’s largest corporate spender on R&D at over $16bn
- Alphabet surpasses Apple, according to a global survey of R&D executives, as the Most Innovative Company and for the first time a Chinese company, Alibaba joins the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies list

NEW YORK, Oct 24 (Bernama-GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Annual worldwide corporate R&D spending broke through $700bn in annual investment, according to an annual analysis of R&D spending across 1000 global public companies by PwC’s Strategy&.

It shows corporate R&D spending increased a steady 3% in the past year, bouncing back from less than 1% increase previously.

However, in a global survey with 562 executive participants, R&D leaders expressed concerns about the growing heat of rhetoric about economic nationalism – and its potential impact on where companies invest in R&D how they conduct innovation.

Overall, 52% of respondents say that a general move toward economic nationalism will have a moderate or significant impact on their companies’ R&D efforts.

Major companies have been conducting some R&D outside their headquarters countries for decades. In 2015 it was determined that 94% of major corporations conduct their R&D in multiple countries.  But increasing attention on regulations and policies for visas, labor movement, and the regulations governing the sharing of knowledge and technology are causing some companies to question how sustainable their integrated global innovation networks are. 

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