Research commissioned by Europe's leading venture capitalist 3i and conducted by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) shows that despite the difficult economic climate, cutting back on R&D damages long-term growth prospects.

The statistical analysis conducted by the EIU looked at different elements of R&D in 29 OECD countries between 1993 to 2001. In particular, the research analysed the relationship between GDP growth and gross domestic expenditure on R&D, business enterprise expenditure on R&D and numbers of resident patent applications. Key findings of the research include:
- A massive 48% of the variations in GDP growth in the US are attributable to innovation spending
- However, only 17% of the European Union's variations in GDP growth can be attributed to R&D investment
- Countries with higher levels of R&D expenditure such as the Nordics, Japan and the US have higher correlations of R&D to GDP growth
- Technology and biotech investments as a share of total VC funding in the US were 13.5% and 70% respectively higher in 2002 compared with 1998 figures, proving that innovative companies can still gain funding