Measuring R&D Expenditure
Regional Workshop on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Indicators for Gulf countries
Doha, Qatar
15 to 17 October 2012
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R&D expenditure - general issues
 Basic measure: “intramural expenditures”
• All expenditures for R&D performed within a
statistical unit or sector of the economy
 Another measure: “extramural expenditures”
• covers payments for R&D performed outside
the statistical unit or sector of the economy
 Current costs and capital expenditures are
measured
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R&D expenditure: current costs
 Current costs are composed of labour costs and
other current costs:
• labour costs of R&D personnel
» annual wages and salaries
» all associated costs or fringe benefits
» Share of R&D in total labour costs: could be
estimated using R&D coefficients derived from timeuse studies; (could be applied at an appropriate level;
individual, institute, department, university).
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R&D expenditure: current costs
• other current costs
» materials, supplies and equipment (incl. water, gas and
electricity);
» books, journals, reference materials, subscriptions;
» materials for laboratories;
» costs for on-site consultants;
» administrative and other overhead costs;
» costs for indirect services;
» labour costs of non-R&D personnel.
» Current costs may be prorated if necessary to allow for
non-R&D activities within the same statistical unit.
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R&D expenditure: capital expenditure
(1)
 Capital expenditures: annual gross
expenditures on fixed assets used in the
R&D programmes of statistical units
• land and buildings
• instruments and equipment
• computer software
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R&D expenditure: capital expenditure
(2): Pro rata expenditure
 Share of R&D in ‘Capital expenditure’ and ‘Other
current costs’: could be estimated (by the
institutes) on the basis of intended use;
 If intended use is not feasible as a criterion, the
same distribution coefficients as for labour costs
may be used.
• Eg: consider a new laboratory that will be used for R&D
(included), testing (excluded) and quality control
(excluded). If the intended use of this new laboratory for
R&D purposes maybe 40% of the total usage (ie. the
other 60% for other activities), only 40% of the total
construction cost of the building should be considered
as the relevant R&D expenditure.
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R&D expenditure: capital expenditure
(3)
 Expenditure should be reported in full for the
period when it took place
 All depreciation provisions, whether real or
imputed, should be excluded
• Practical reasons
• Government sector – no depreciation provisions;
comparisons with other sectors
• If depreciation is included in current costs, the addition
of capital expenditures would result in double counting
• Different accounting systems
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Measuring R&D expenditure (1)
 R&D involves significant transfers of resources
among units, organisations and sectors
• In particular between government and other performers
• Important information for science policy
 R&D expenditure = resources actually spent on
R&D activities, rather than only budgeted.
 For sound data  rely on responses of R&D
performers rather than funding agencies
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Measuring R&D expenditure (2)
 Issues when using secondary data from national budget
• New sources of funds emerging (NGOs, Foreign entities, BE)
• Discrepancy between voted and allocated budget
• Budgetary commitments are not followed up
• Mixing of budgetary records and annual reports from
performing units
• Definition of S&T / R&D budgets
• Identifying R&D components in the national budget
 State-owned enterprises, university-owned companies and
national scientific academies
 Public vs. Private universities
 Fiscal year vs. calendar year
 Information systems in government and higher education
inadequate for statistics
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Measuring R&D expenditure (3)
 A statistical unit may have intramural and
extramural expenditures on R&D
 The full procedure for measuring expenditures:
• Identify intramural expenditure on R&D performed by
each statistical unit
• Identify the sources of funds as reported by the
performer
• Aggregate the data by sectors of performance and
sources of funds to derive significant national totals
• Optional: Identify the extramural R&D expenditures of
each statistical unit
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Sources of R&D expenditure
Criteria for identifying flows of R&D funds
 There must be a direct transfer of resources
 The transfer must be both intended and used for
the performance of R&D
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Public general university funds (GUF)
Universities draw on three types of funds to finance their R&D
 R&D contracts and earmarked grants from government
and other outside sources  credited to their original
source
 Universities’ “own funds”
• Income from endowments, shareholdings and property
• fees from individual students
• subscriptions to journals
• sale of serum or agricultural produce
 General grant from the ministry of education (or
corresponding authorities) in support of their overall
research/teaching activities  the R&D content of these
public general university funds should be credited to
government as a source of funds.
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GERD: Sector of performance and source of funds
S
o
u
r
c
e
s
Abroad: 200
200 (10%)
(10%)
20
30
PNP: 250
(13%)
100
50
100
50
HE: 200
(10%)
50
GOV: 950
(48%)
BE: 400
(20%)
50
20
100
50
30
50
300
500
100
50
P
e
r
f
o
r
m
e
r
s
PNP: 240
(12%)
HE: 530
(27%)
GOV: 800
(40%)
50
100
200
BE: 430
(22%)
TOTAL GERD: 2000
GERD: Gross domestic expenditure on R&D
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GERD - matrix of performing and funding
sectors
Sectors of performance
Funding sectors
(Sources of funds)
Business
enterprise
Government
Higher
education
Private
non-profit
Total
Business enterprise
200
100
50
50
400 - financed by BE
Government
100
500
300
50
950 -financed by GOV
Public general university
funds (GUF)
Included
above
financed by GUF
Higher education
30
50
100
20
200 - financed by HE
Private non-profit (PNP)
50
50
50
100
250 - financed by PNP
Funds from Abroad
• Foreign enterprise
(Within group/Other)
• Foreign govt.
• EU
• Intl. org.
• Other
50
100
30
20
Total
200 - financed by
abroad
430
Total
performed by
BE
800
Total
performed
by GOV
530
Total
performed
by HE
240
Total
performed
by PNP
2000
TOTAL
GERD
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National totals
 Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD): total intramural
expenditure on R&D performed on the national territory during
a given period.
• includes R&D performed within a country (which financed by national
institutions and also funded from abroad) but excludes payments for R&D
performed abroad.
• constructed by adding together the intramural expenditures of the four
performing sectors.
 Gross national expenditure on R&D (GNERD): total
expenditure on R&D financed by a country’s institutions during
a given period.
• includes R&D performed abroad but financed by national institutions or
residents; it excludes R&D performed within a country but funded from abroad.
• constructed by adding the domestically financed intramural expenditures of
each performing sector and the R&D performed abroad but financed by
domestic funding sectors
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Thank you!
http://www.uis.unesco.org
m.schaaper@unesco.org
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