Ask Full Fact: are 1400 firms responsible for half of the world's R&D?

Via Twitter: "Liam Byrne at #spru says something like half of global (presumably biz) R&D is in the hands of 1400 companies. Is this true?"

Liam Byrne has used this figure before to raise concerns about the potential impact of large-scale investment by big firms in certain markets.

He attributed the figure to a book by Professor Peter Nolan. We don't have access to the book, but data from the European Commission supports the idea that the majority of private Research and Development (R&D) spending comes from a minority of firms.

The Commission publishes tables showing a scoreboard of the 2000 global companies investing the most in R&D. An accompanying report says these 2000 firms were responsible for over 90% of all private R&D expenditure worldwide.

According to the tables, their total expenditure was about €539 billion in 2012. The top 1400 companies made up €511 billion of that — over 95%.

So putting the two figures together, these figures suggest the top 1400 firms were responsible for well over a half of private sector investment in R&D. It is important to note that research by government bodies or universities are not included in the totals.