Innovation in Companies Statistics. 2020

The number of companies with ten or more employees based in Catalonia with expenditure on innovative activities in 2020 totalled 4,518 and the expenditure on these activities amounted 3,978.2 million euros. If the expenditure on innovation performed by all companies in Catalonia is counted, regardless of the locations of their head offices, the amount totalled 4,512.5 million euros, 14.0% less than last year.

By types of innovative activity, 46.0% of the expenditure performed in Catalonia corresponded to in-house R&D activities and 15.7% to R&D acquisition (external R&D), while the remaining 38.3% was assigned to other innovative activities (excluding R&D), such as the acquisition of machinery equipment, product design and the training and development of the personnel allocated to different R&D innovations.

With regard to innovation intensity, the percentage of turnover accounted for by expenditure on innovative activities stood at 3.2% in innovative companies with ten or more employees based in Catalonia.

In the last three years (2018-2020), 7,473 companies with ten or more employees based in Catalonia performed technological innovation, a figure accounting for 25.1% of the total. In the same period, 14.2% of all companies (4,248 companies) performed product innovations (by introducing new or significantly improved goods or services) and 22.1% (6,596 companies) performed business process innovations (by implementing a new or improved business process for one or more business functions that significantly differed from the previous one).