Applied research — original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge
directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective.
Basic research — theoretical or experimental work undertaken primarily to acquire new
knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and observable facts,
without any particular application or use in view.
Employee — person
who sells his or her labour to an employer (has an employment relationship with
the employer) and in return receives remuneration in money (wages and salaries,
fee, piecework pay, compensation).
Experimental development — systematic work drawing on existing knowledge gained from basic or
applied research which is directed to producing new or substantially improved
materials, products, devices, to installing new or substantially improved
processes, systems and services.
Full-time equivalent (FTE) — working time spent on R&D by R&D personnel in
person-years.
Research and experimental development (R&D) comprise creative work undertaken on a
systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including
knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this knowledge to devise
new applications.
The statistical survey
“Research and experimental development” consists of two separate parts included
in different questionnaires. One covers the non-profit institutional sectors,
the other one refers to the business enterprise sector. The principles to form
the frame of the survey are also different.
The frame of the survey for
business enterprise sector is based on the list of R&D performing
enterprises whose R&D activities are detected in the financial statistics
survey. The list is continuously updated with the enterprises receiving
financing from the Science Foundation and
The frame of the survey for
non-profit sectors consists of registered research institutions, universities
and higher schools, associations and foundations whose activities include
R&D. The list is continously updated with information on units performing
R&D from Science Foundation, Enviromental Investment Centre,
The data on R&D from enterprises
based on international methodology are collected by Statistics Estonia
since 1998, from non-profit institutions from 1994. The methodology of
statistics on R&D is based on “Proposed Standard Practice for Surveys on
Research and Experimental Development: Frascati Manual”, last version of this
manual was published by OECD in 2002, and on the methodological recommendations
of Eurostat.
Research and experimental development covers basic
research, applied research, and experimental development (see definitions).
The activities to be excluded
from R&D are:
Activities connected with
scientific and technical information — collecting, translating, analysing, disseminating such
information, bibliographic, patent or license services (except when carried out
solely for the purposes of a specific R&D project).
General purpose data
collection, processing and analysis in the field of natural and social phenomena (normally, only
the state has the needed resources), such as topographical mapping, routine
geological, hydrological and meteorological surveying, as well as regular
statistical surveys. When data are specially collected as part of the R&D
project or primarily for the purpose of R&D project, the activities should
be attributed to R&D. Data collected for other or general purposes (as for
example, the Labour Force Survey) should be excluded from R&D even if
exploited for research. Market surveys should never be included in R&D.
Testing and standardisation — the maintenance and calibration of
national standards, routine testing and analysis of materials, products,
processes, soils or atmosphere.
Feasibility studies of proposed engineering and social
projects based on already existing methodology. However, feasibility studies on
research projects are part of R&D.
Specialised health care concerning routine investigation and
normal application of medical knowledge. There may, however, be an element of
R&D, especially in university hospitals, where the newest experimental
methods are used. If it is a part of research project then it is included in
R&D.
Patent and license work, excluding patent work connected
directly with R&D projects.
According to international methodology, the R&D
performing units are grouped into four institutional
sectors:
business enterprise
sector — all
enterprises, organisations and institutions whose primary activity is the
market production of goods or services (other than higher education) for sale
at an economically significant price; the sector includes also private non-profit
institutions mainly serving them;
higher education
sector — all
universities, and other educational institutions providing higher education and
all institutions under their direct control or associated with them (research
institutes, clinics, scientific centres), whatever their source of finance or
legal status;
government sector — all departments and offices
financed by the state or municipalities whose primary activity is not the market production of goods
and services and which do not belong to the higher education sector; the sector
includes also private non-profit institutions mainly financed by government;
private non-profit
sector —
non-profit associations, societies, foundations and their scientific units
(excluding those mainly financed by government or serving enterprises).
The term non-profit
sectors is used for the last three sectors in order to distinguish them
from the business enterprise sector.
To follow the financial flows between the economic
sectors, the classification of the sources
of funds coincides with that of economic sectors, however, the fifth one is
added to cover foreign sources:
government — basic or special financing from
the government as well as from municipal budgets, funds received from
foundations financed by the government (incl. grants), own funds of
institutions of the government sector (from the sale of products or services,
leasing of rooms, etc.);
business enterprise
sector —
enterprise’s own funds, payments received from other enterprises for services
or on contract basis, etc;
private non-profit
sector — payments
received from private non-profit institutions for services or on contract
basis, etc.; own funds of private non-profit institutions;
universities and
higher schools — payments
received from universities and higher schools and from scientific institutions
associated with them for services or on contract basis, etc.; own funds of
universities and higher schools;
foreign capital — funds received from international
foundations or on the basis of international agreements, payments received from
abroad for services or on contract basis. Support from European Union,
international organisation, foreign state or foreign non-governmental
organisation mediated through governmental budget are classified as government
not foreign funds.
The employee is engaged
in R&D if at least 10% of his working time is spent on R&D tasks. The
R&D personnel can be divided
into the following three categories:
researchers — all professionals with an academic
degree or higher education diploma engaged in basic or applied research or
experimental development to create new knowledge, products, processes, methods
and systems; all academic staff engaged in R&D activities, as well as
managers and administrators engaged in planning and management of the
scientific and technical aspects; postgraduate students and persons attending
doctor’s courses, who perform original research. Persons who are occupied as
researchers but whose educational level is lower, performers of routine
analysis, bibliographers, programmers, etc. should be classified as
technicians;
technicians — persons with vocational or
technical education engaged in R&D activities and performing the tasks
under the supervision of researchers; the same applies to persons who perform
their R&D tasks under the supervision of researchers in the field of social
sciences and humanities;
supporting staff includes craftsmen, secretarial and
clerical staff participating in R&D projects or directly associated with
such projects.
The R&D personnel do not
include security guards, cleaners, caterers, bookkeepers, personnel executives,
librarians, IT-personnel, equipment maintenance personnel, etc. If employees in
the listed categories provide services to R&D units, then their
corresponding labour costs must be regarded as other current costs.
The R&D personnel is
measured in persons as well in full-time equivalents (FTE) that is working time spent on R&D by R&D
personnel in person-years. A university teacher must divide his working hours
between teaching and research, as well as an employee in enterprise must divide
his working time between the production work and research. The value of FTE is
based on estimation and it lies between zero and one. It can be one only in
case the person is fully engaged in R&D during the whole working time.
With respect to expenditures
devoted to R&D, the intramural
expenditure is measured, i.e. the expenditure on the research and
experimental development, which are performed within each statistical unit by
its employees. Otherwise, the data would be doubled as both the performer and
the customer will record the amount. The extramural
expenditure, i.e. the expenditure devoted to R&D and performed outside
the statistical unit, is of interest only in the case of the business enterprise
sector, as it allows to follow the connections and co-operation between
enterprises and scientific institutions, and is one of the indices of the
innovativeness of enterprises. If there is a reference just to R&D
expenditure for a country or an economic sector in publications, one can be
sure that only intramural expenditure is included. The data on expenditure reported by R&D performing units are mostly
based on estimations as there is no legal basis to perform separate accountancy
for R&D.
The classification
of socio-economic objectives is based on 2007 version of the “Nomenclature for
the Analysis and Comparison of Scientific Programmes and Budgets” (NABS 2007).
Main diffrence from older version (NABS 1992) lies in division of chapter
“Social structures and relationships” into three separate chapters “Culture,
recreation, religion and mass media”, “Education” and “Political and social
systems, structures and processes”. New version is used since 2008 data
collection and the corresponding tables have undergone changes in texts and
structure.
Fields of
science and technology (by OECD)
|
1 |
Natural
sciences |
|
1.1 |
Mathematics
and computer sciences (hardware development should be classified in the
engineering fields) |
|
1.2 |
Physical
sciences (incl. astronomy, space sciences, physics, etc.) |
|
1.3 |
Chemical
sciences |
|
1.4 |
Earth and
related environmental sciences (geology, geophysics, mineralogy, physical
geography, meteorology, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, vulcanology,
paleoecology, etc.), |
|
1.5 |
Biological
sciences (biology, botany, bacteriology, microbiology, zoology, entomology,
genetics, biochemistry, biophysics, etc., excluding clinical and veterinary
sciences) |
|
2 |
Engineering
and technology |
|
2.1 |
Civil
engineering |
|
2.2 |
Electrical
engineering and electronics (incl. communication systems, hardware, etc.) |
|
2.3 |
Other
engineering sciences (mechanical engineering, equipment-building, technology
of manufacturing, technology of food production, geodesy, industrial
chemistry, etc.) |
|
3 |
Medical
sciences |
|
3.1 |
Basic
medicine (anatomy, cytology, physiology, pharmacy, toxicology, immunology,
pathology, etc.) |
|
3.2 |
Clinical
medicine (anaesthesiology, paediatrics, gynaecology, surgery, dentistry,
neurology, psychiatry, radiology, therapeutics, otorhinolaryngology,
ophthalmology, etc.) |
|
3.3 |
Health
sciences (social medicine, hygiene, nursing, epidemiology, public health
services) |
|
4 |
Agricultural
sciences |
|
4.1 |
Agriculture,
forestry, fisheries and allied sciences |
|
4.2 |
Veterinary
medicine |
|
5 |
Social
sciences |
|
5.1 |
Psychology |
|
5.2 |
Economics |
|
5.3 |
Educational
sciences |
|
5.4 |
Other
social sciences (anthropology, ethnology, demography, geography, town
planning, management, law, linguistics, political sciences, sociology, but
physical anthropology, physical geography and psychophysiology should
normally be classified with natural sciences) |
|
6 |
Humanities |
|
6.1 |
History
(together with archaeology, numismatics, palaeography, genealogy, etc.) |
|
6.2 |
Languages
and literature |
|
6.3 |
Other
humanities (philosophy, history of science, arts, history of art, art
criticism, religion and theology, creativity subjects, etc.) |
Teadus- ja
arendustegevus. Research
and Development. Yearbook
Eesti
statistika aastaraamat. Statistical Yearbook of
Aavo Heinlo
Enterprise
Statistics Department
Tel
+372 625 9217
Updated: 16.06.2009