Trends in Research and Development Investment of Transnational Corporations Broken Down by Sector

The article aims to identify trends in R&D activities of transnational corporations in 25 sectors. The analysis covered the top 1000 TNCs in terms of R&D investment in 2003-2015. The investigation confirmed the existence of varying trends between sectors, despite the overall marked increase in R&D investment. The study also determined the characteristics of geographical locations of the top five sectors, strongly dominated by US TNCs. In addition, four groups of sectors were identified depending on the R&D trends observed in the period under analysis. (original abstract)