This Annual Report covers developments and activities during 2007. The report is accompanied by a Commission Staff Working Document, which provides more detailed reporting and statistics. The main chapters are on the activities and results achieved in 2007 and on developments in research and technological development (RTD) activities in the Member States of the European Union.

The report brings intresting observations on trends in public and private research investment.In 2006, as in 2005, EU27 Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (GERD) amounted to 1.84% of GDP. Since 2000, the R&D intensity of EU27 has remained within a small one-decimal range: from 1.79% in 1996-98 to 1.88% in 2002. The stagnation of R&D intensity at EU27 level hides a more dynamic and contrasted picture at Member State level.
The less R&D intensive Member States (the new Member States, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland) have generally shown significant increases in their respective R&D intensities (these increases are considerable in some of them, especially after 2003), with the notable exceptions of Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Greece that have worryingly been falling further behind. Whereas substantial increases in R&D intensity are easier to achieve starting from very low values typical of the new Member States, or from the relatively low values seen in Ireland and Spain, they do illustrate that R&D intensity can increase, even under conditions of strong GDP growth. Among the more R&D intensive Member States, only Austria and, to a lesser extent Denmark, have managed to make progress. R&D intensity in Sweden and Finland is already greater than 3% but remains below the targets they have set themselves at 4%.