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ICI stays top of the league of big R&D spenders in Britain, having
spent £596 million in 1991. The only new top 10 entry is Wellcome,
just in at number 10 with an R&D budget of £230 million. The
figures, from the second UK R&D Scoreboard, produced by Company Reporting
for the Department of Trade and Industry, are prepared from information
in companies’ annual reports.

More companies now publish R&D spending in their annual reports.
DTI officials believe that failure to appear in last year’s scoreboard shamed
some companies, hence the appearance this year of 100 new names. The scoreboard
now gives details of 330 companies.

The pharmaceuticals industry remains the most willing to invest in R&D.
Glaxo went up two places, to number 2, with a 19 per cent increase in its
budget. Some 30 per cent of ICI’s R&D budget went on pharmaceuticals
research.

Another change in this year’s scoreboard is the absence of qualifying
notes to mark companies that failed to separate R&D spending on their
own behalf from research carried out under contract. Smiths Industries claimed
its spending on R&D slumped to around £44 million in 1990/91
from £108 million the previous year. But it stands at £113
million when work for customers is taken into account.

The scoreboard also contains an international top 200. Introducing the
report, Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, says that ‘it
is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in other countries a higher priority
is given to investing in R&D’.

British companies spend relatively less on R&D and more on dividends
to shareholders than foreign counterparts. ICI spent £596 million
on R&D and £391 million on dividends, while BASF of Germany,
another large chemical company, spent £727 million and £241
million respectively.