European Union companies increased research and development investments in key sectors including energy, health, aerospace and defence in 2024 despite an overall slowdown in growth, according to the European Commission’s 2025 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard released on 22 December 2025.
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre published the 2025 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard on 22 December 2025 in Brussels, revealing that EU-headquartered companies invested €233.8 billion in research and development in 2024, marking a 2.9 per cent growth rate down from 9.3 per cent the previous year, while sectors such as health, energy and aerospace outperformed global peers to support Europe’s green transition and technological autonomy.
Scoreboard Highlights Slowdown Amid Sectoral Gains
According to the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the 2025 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard, produced since 2004 in collaboration with the Directorate General Research and Innovation, analyses financial accounts from the world’s top 2000 research and development investors, covering nearly 90 per cent of global private research and development funding, alongside an extended sample of the top 800 EU-based companies investing €245.5 billion in 2024 across 20 member states.
The scoreboard shows EU companies’ overall research and development investment grew by 2.9 per cent nominally in 2024, lagging behind the rest of the world at 8.1 per cent, the United States at 7.8 per cent, Japan at 7.1 per cent and China at 3.9 per cent, with global research and development rising 6.3 per cent to €1,442.6 billion, as reported by the European Commission’s Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard and detailed by the IRI at the Joint Research Centre.
As reported by Public Affairs Bruxelles for Public Affairs Bruxelles, EU companies increased research and development investments in key sectors despite the broader slowdown.
Strategic Sectors Drive Europe’s Research and Development Resilience
The health sector saw EU companies increase research and development investments by 13 per cent in 2024, surpassing the United States at 7.1 per cent, Japan at 9.1 per cent and China at 0.1 per cent, according to the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, highlighting Europe’s strengths in life sciences amid rising global demand for medical innovations.
In the energy sector, particularly electricity and renewable energy, EU companies boosted research and development by 19.8 per cent and capital expenditure by 17.8 per cent to nearly 18 per cent, outpacing the United States at 6 per cent, Japan at minus 14.2 per cent and China at 3.8 per cent, as noted by The Brussels Times and Open Access Government, reinforcing Europe’s Clean Industrial Deal objectives for the green transition.
Aerospace and Defence Investments Rise Amid Geopolitical Shifts
Aerospace and defence companies in the EU raised research and development spending by 4.8 per cent to almost 5 per cent in 2024, reflecting efforts to enhance defence readiness and technological autonomy in a changing geopolitical landscape, according to The Brussels Times and Open Access Government.
Germany and France led in company numbers and research and development investment within the EU’s top 800 companies, with over four-fifths of global research and development concentrated in information and communication technology software, hardware, health and automotive, where US firms dominate information and communication technology and health but EU companies hold the lead in automotive, per the European Commission’s scoreboard as covered by the IRI and The Brussels Times.
Broader Context and Regional Comparisons
EU capital expenditure overall rose by 7.7 per cent, driven by US information and communication technology software firms surging 50.5 per cent for data centres amid the AI boom, while EU energy companies increased theirs by 23 per cent and China’s fell 2.2 per cent for the first time since 2016, according to the IRI at the Joint Research Centre.
Companies in innovation leader countries achieved 6.8 per cent average annual research and development growth over the past decade, compared to 4.6 per cent in strong innovator nations like Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland and Luxembourg, and 2.5 per cent in moderate innovators, as analysed in the 2025 scoreboard by the European Commission.
The automotive sector in the EU stagnated after prior growth, while US big tech propelled much of the global increase, with the scoreboard emphasising Europe’s retained leadership in automotive research and development, as reported by Open Access Government and The Brussels Times.
Policy Responses and Future Investment Efforts
Additional measures include improving access to research infrastructures and accelerating artificial intelligence adoption via the AI in Science Strategy and Resource for AI Science in Europe to help companies scale up and maintain competitiveness, according to Open Access Government.
Separate initiatives support these trends, such as the European Commission and European Investment Bank Group’s BioTechEU under TechEU, mobilising €10 billion for biotech with a €3.5 billion existing life sciences portfolio across 135 projects, as announced on 16 December 2025, and a €50 million European Investment Bank investment in Comau for robotics research and development, though not directly tied to the scoreboard.
The 2025 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard confirms EU companies’ €233.8 billion research and development spend in 2024 with gains in health at 13 per cent, energy at 19.8 per cent and aerospace/defence at nearly 5 per cent, against a 2.9 per cent overall rise lagging global averages, as documented by the European Commission on 22 December 2025.
