In total, 14 Swiss companies are ranked in the group of 500 companies worldwide with the highest level of corporate expenditure for research and development (R&D), further details of which can be found in a press release issued by EY. With Roche ranked in 8th position overall, Switzerland is even represented in the top ten. Overall, the Basel-based pharmaceutical company invested the equivalent of 16 billion euros in R&D activities in 2022.

With Novartis in 14th position, the second-highest ranked Swiss firm also comes from Basel. The life sciences company spent the equivalent of 9.5 billion euros on R&D. At 159 million euros, the specialist chemicals firm Clariant from Muttenz in the canton of Basel-Landschaft was ranked in 454th place, making it the third Basel Area company in the top 500. The Swiss delegation is rounded off by STMicroelectronics, Nestlé, ABB, TE Connectivity, Alcon Inc, Givaudan, The Swatch Group, Swisscom, Sika, Holcim and Schindler Holding, which are ranked between 103rd and 420th.

Swiss companies invested 33 billion euros in R&D

Measured by the number of companies, Switzerland is more or less on a par with the UK, the press release explains. “This is an expression of the strength of Switzerland as a research location”, Stefan Rösch-Rütsche, Country Managing Partner of EY in Switzerland, who concludes that this can in particular be attributed to “the availability of human resources in research and development and the proximity to the world’s leading technical universities”.

All in all, Swiss companies invested the equivalent of 33 billion euros in R&D activities overall in 2022. This puts Switzerland in 5th place in a global comparison. For Rösch-Rütsche, this is “a positive sign for Switzerland as a business location”. However, he also points out that investments in Switzerland have increased by just +5 percent, which is well below the global average of +14 percent.