This biennial report continues the joint JRC-OECD analysis of the IP portfolios of the world's top 2 000 R&D investors. The report shows that global R&D and patenting activities are highly concentrated among the world’s top 2 000 R&D investors. These are equivalent to 87% of global business R&D expenditures by the private sector and 63% of patent filings across all technologies. There is much less concentration at the commercialisation stage, with only 6% of total trademarks owned by the top R&D investors. The world’s top R&D investors are key contributors to global climate-related innovation. They own 70% of global climate change mitigation or adaptation patents and over 10% of global climate-related trademarks, which is larger than their contribution to overall patents and trademarks across all fields. Looking at the potential contribution of the digital revolution to climate-related innovation at the invention stage, 20% of climate-related patents have a digital component (against 33% for patents across all technological fields). Finally, this edition of the report investigates for the first time the gender composition of both the board of directors of the top 2 000 R&D investors, and of their R&D workforce. In general, EU27 companies have on average more gender-balanced boards than the US and the Asian ones, with a women representation of at least 26%. A substantial gender gap is also observed for inventors listed in patent applications, with significant heterogeneity across countries and sectors.

AMOROSO Sara;  ARISTODEMOU Leonidas;  CRISCUOLO Chiara;  DECHEZLEPRETE Antoine;  DERNIS Helene;  GRASSANO Nicola;  MOUSSIEGT Laurent;  NAPOLITANO Lorenzo;  NAWA Daisuke;  SQUICCIARINI Mariagrazia;  TUEBKE Alexander; 

2021-11-23

Publications Office of the European Union

JRC126788

978-92-76-43373-6 (online),   

1831-9424 (online),   

EUR 30884 EN,    OP KJ-NA-30884-EN-N (online),   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC126788,   

10.2760/49552 (online),