4 RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT (R&D) STATISTICS

4.1 RECENTLY RELEASED RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT STATISTICS
4.2 CAPITALISATION OF RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL ACCOUNTS
4.3 THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND STANDARD RESEARCH CLASSIFICATION (ANZSRC)


4.1 RECENTLY RELEASED RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT STATISTICS

Research and Experimental Development, Businesses, Australia, 2007-08 (cat. no. 8104.0), was released on 25 September 2009. Business expenditure on R&D (BERD) was $14,380 million, an increase of 15% in current price terms and 9% in chain volume terms from 2006-07.

R&D data are currently being collected and compiled for the 2008-09 reference period. Upcoming releases of R&D statistics include those for:

• Higher Education Organisations, scheduled for release in late May 2010;
• Government and Private Non-Profit Organisations, scheduled for release in mid July 2010;
• Businesses, scheduled for release in September 2010; and an
• All Sector Summary, scheduled for release in October 2010.

Previous results may be viewed at:

Research and Experimental Development, All Sector Summary, Australia, 2006-07 (cat. no. 8112.0)
Research and Experimental Development, Government and Private Non-Profit Organisations, Australia, 2006-07 (cat. no. 8109.0)
Research and Experimental Development, Higher Education Organisations, Australia, 2006 (cat. no. 8111.0)

4.2 CAPITALISATION OF RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

The most recent release of Australian System of National Accounts (cat. no. 5204.0), which occurred in December 2009, treated R&D as capital formation for the first time. This resulted from the implementation of the new international standards System of National Accounts (SNA 2008) and represents a change in treatment of R&D (as intermediate consumption) from SNA 1993.

For further information regarding the treatment of R&D for Australian System of National Accounts, please refer to Information Paper: Implementation of new international statistics standards in ABS National and International Accounts, September 2009 (cat. no. 5310.0.55.002).

4.3 THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND STANDARD RESEARCH CLASSIFICATION (ANZSRC)

The Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC) 2008 (cat. no. 1297.0) was developed for dual purposes: a need for a comprehensive description of today's research environment, as well as to facilitate the comparison of R&D statistics internationally. The 2007-08 Research and Experimental Development, Business, Australia (cat. no. 8104.0) was the first ABS release to output statistics using this classification. R&D results for the remaining sectors output on an ANZSRC 2008 basis will occur from the 2008-09 releases.