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EXPLANATORY NOTES


DATA SOURCES

1 The statistics presented in this publication have been compiled from data collected from businesses in the Survey of Research and Experimental Development in respect of the year ended 30 June 2005. The survey was conducted by mail questionnaire and a 92.6% response rate was obtained.

2 The GDP and GSP figures used to derive BERD/GDP and BERD/GSP ratios are current at the time of manuscript finalisation and are referenced in the tables below.

Expenditure on Gross Domestic Product, current prices
	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-00	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m
GDP	545 736	577 422	607 863	645 153	689 340	735 783	782 798	838 251	893 704
National Income, Expenditure and Product, Australian National Accounts, March Quarter 2006 (cat. no. 5206.0)

Gross State Product, current prices
	NSW	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas.	NT	ACT
	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m	$m
2002-03	275 358	197 266	132 432	53 635	85 470	13 502	9 042	16 091
2003-04	290 746	212 243	144 701	56 737	92 339	14 794	9 381	17 309
2004-05	305 437	222 022	158 506	59 819	100 900	16 114	10 418	18 306
Australian National Accounts, State Accounts (cat. no. 5220.0)

STATISTICAL UNIT

3 The statistical unit used to represent businesses and for which statistics are reported is, in most cases, the Australian Business Number (ABN) unit. The ABN unit is the business unit which has registered for an ABN and thus appears on the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) administered Australian Business Register (ABR). This unit is suitable for ABS statistical needs when the business is simple in structure. For more significant and diverse businesses where the ABN unit is not suitable for ABS statistical needs, the statistical unit used is the Type of Activity Unit (TAU). A TAU is comprised of one or more business entities, sub-entities or branches of a business entity within an Enterprise Group that can report production and employment data for similar economic activities. Further details about the ABS economic statistical units used in this survey and in other ABS economic surveys (both sample and census) can be found in Chapter 2 of the Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia (SESCA) 2002 (cat. no. 1218.0).

4 During 2004-05, a comprehensive revision of ABN units (in scope of the R&D survey) took place, resulting in a number of ABN units being merged and replaced with TAU units. As a consequence of these changes, business counts from the 2004-05 survey onwards will not be comparable to previously released figures. Business counts may be available on request, subject to caveats.

Definitions

5 R&D as collected by the ABS is defined in accordance with the OECD standard as comprising '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 stock of knowledge to devise new applications'. Although outside the economic boundary of R&D as defined by the OECD, R&D performed overseas by Australian businesses is included in the data in this publication.

6 For a more comprehensive interpretation of the definition of R&D activity, see the Australian Standard Research Classification (ASRC), 1998 (cat. no. 1297.0) or refer to the OECD publication Proposed Standard Practice for Surveys of Research and Experimental Development ('Frascati Manual') 2002, OECD, Paris, 2003.

SCOPE

7 The ABS R&D survey includes all businesses within the business sector of Australia, excluding those mainly engaged in Agriculture, forestry and fishing (i.e. Division A of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 1993 (cat. no. 1292.0)). This is partly because of collection difficulties and partly because such businesses are believed to have low R&D activity (agricultural R&D activity is generally carried out by specialised research institutes not included in ANZSIC Division A).

8 The business sector includes all businesses (whose primary activity is the production of goods and services for sale to the general public at a price intended to cover at least the costs of production) and the private non-profit institutions mainly serving them.

9 The vast majority of businesses in this sector are private businesses. The remainder are public businesses mainly engaged in trading or financial activities.

COVERAGE

10 The R&D survey comprises a complete enumeration of businesses identified by the ABS as likely to have carried out R&D activity.

11 Within the scope of the survey, businesses were included if they:

• reported R&D activity in previous surveys;
• applied for an AusIndustry administered R&D Tax Concession and/or grant for industry R&D;
• were identified as likely to have R&D activity from other sources such as newspapers, industrial journals, research compendia etc.; or
• indicated that R&D activity had been performed in the reference year via a coverage questionnaire.

13 Each ABN unit/TAU is classified by the ABS to the industry in which it mainly operates. In cases where an Enterprise Group sets up a dedicated research unit, that unit is classified to the predominant industry of the group rather than to Scientific Research (ANZSIC 7810), in accordance with standards laid down in the Frascati Manual.

EMPLOYMENT SIZE

14 Employment size relates to the number of persons employed by the business during the last pay period in June 2005.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC OBJECTIVE (SEO) AND RESEARCH FIELDS, COURSES AND DISCIPLINES CLASSIFICATIONS (RFCD)

15 Statistics classified by SEO and RFCD have been collected and presented in this publication. Data were subjectively allocated by businesses at the time of reporting. See the Technical Note on Reliability of Statistics for further detail. For more information on these classifications, see the Australian Standard Research Classification (ASRC), 1998 (cat. no. 1297.0). Aggregated groupings of SEOs or RFCDs are annotated with n.e.c. and reflect the remnant of the relevant SEO Subdivision or RFCD Division.

EXPECTED EXPENDITURE

16 Comprises an estimate of R&D expenditure for the following financial year by businesses that performed R&D in the reference period covered by this publication. Excluded from this estimate is expected R&D expenditure for business that did not perform R&D in the current reference period.

CHAIN VOLUME MEASURES (CVM)

17 CVM in this publication are annually reweighted chain Laspeyres indexes referenced to the current price values in a chosen reference year (currently 2004-05). They are formed in a multistage process of which the major steps are described in Section 15 of the Information Paper: Introduction of Chain Volume Measures in the Australian National Accounts (cat. no. 5248.0).

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

18 Users may also wish to refer to the following publications:

Australian Bureau of Statistics 1998, Australian Standard Research Classification (ASRC), cat. no. 1297.0, ABS, Canberra
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005, Innovation in Australian Business 2003, cat. no. 8158.0, ABS, Canberra
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2004, Research and Experimental Development, All Sector Summary, Australia, 2002-03, cat. no. 8112.0, ABS, Canberra
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2004, Research and Experimental Development, Government and Private Non-Profit Organisations, Australia, 2002-03, cat. no. 8109.0, ABS, Canberra
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006, Research and Experimental Development, Higher Education Organisations, Australia, 2004, cat. no. 8111.0, ABS, Canberra
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2003, Proposed Standard Practice for Surveys of Research and Experimental Development ('Frascati Manual') 2002, OECD, Paris

ABS DATA AVAILABLE ON REQUEST

20 As well as the statistics included in this and related publications, the ABS may have other relevant data available on request. Inquiries should be made to the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.

ROUNDING

21 Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.