Technology Review has released a scorecard about R&D indexes. Interesting to see the big players. In addition, there is an article about this.

The 2005 edition of the TR R&D Scorecard shows that worldwide corporate spending is picking up, but that the gains are unevenly distributed. The biggest advances are in the life sciences, which also happen to be among the most research-intensive industries: 2004 R&D spending among the biotech companies on the list shot up by an average of 69 percent over the previous year.

The results are (quickly summarized):

Four industries--biotech, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals/medical devices, and software--spent significantly more on R&D, proportionally, then the others.

Research budgets at biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and computer software companies grew the most last year.

The overall Innovation Index rankings of six industries, including semiconductors, computer hardware, and telecommunications, improved in 2004.