According to the results of survey published in June by, the top three choices for outsourced R&D were other companies (48.1%), independent R&D organizations (38.9%) and academia (35.1%). The two most popular types of outsourced work were new product innovations (32.1%) and new process innovations (31.3%). The two most common reasons for outsourcing were the external organization’s expertise (51.9%) and manpower shortage (38.9%). Intellectual property (IP) issues were the most commonly cited reason for not outsourcing at 58.4%, followed by superior internal expertise (46.6%) and sufficient internal support (38.8%). The US is the most popular outsourcing location (84.0%), followed by Europe (25.2%), India (19.1%) and China (18.3%). (Multiple answers for questions yielded totals greater than 100%.) Respondents were split on IP protection: 51.8% thought their outsourcing resources provided adequate protection and 48.2% did not. Satisfaction with outsourced R&D was high: 86.2% were satisfied and only 13.8% were not.

Source: R&D Magazine