According to the 2008 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard of the European Commission, with 8,8 %, companies of the EU show for the first time a stronger growth of the R&D investments than their Americans counterparts (8,6 %). The research intensity, that is the ratio between R&D and net sales, stays nevertheless very superior in the United States, where it establishes, on average at 4,5 % against 2,7 % in Europe. Besides, the R&D of the private sector in Europe represents only 1 % of the gross domestic product, what would indicate that an increasing part of the investments in R&D of the European firms is made outside the Union. We get closer to the Lisbon objectives, but the efforts need to be pursued to hope reaching them.
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