EXPLANATORY NOTES
DATA SOURCES
1 The statistics presented in this publication have been compiled from data collected from Government and Private non-profit organisations 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 96.8% response rate was obtained.
2 The GDP and GSP figures used to derive GOVERD and PNPERD/GDP and 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 | 1998-99 | 2000-01 | 2002-03 | 2004-05 | |
| $m | $m | $m | $m | $m | |
| |
| GDP | 545 736 | 607 863 | 689 340 | 782 798 | 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 | |
| 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 organisations and for which statistics are reported is, in most cases, the Australian Business Number (ABN) unit. The ABN unit is the organisational 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 organisation is simple in structure. For more significant and diverse organisations 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 organisational entities, sub-entities or branches of an organisation 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).
DEFINITIONS
4 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 organisations are included in this publication's data.
5 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 on Research and Experimental Development ('Frascati Manual' 2002), OECD, Paris, 2003.
SCOPE
6 In 2004-05, the sector scope for Government and Private non-profit organisations was determined using the guidelines of the Standard Institutional Sector Classification of Australia (SISCA). The Government and the Private non-profit sectors were defined by SISCA 3000 and SISCA 5000 respectively. Further details about the ABS sector classification can be found in the Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia (SESCA) 2002 (cat.no. 1218.0).
COVERAGE
7 The Government and Private non-profit surveys comprise a complete enumeration of organisations identified by the ABS as likely to have carried out R&D activity.
8 Within the scope of the survey, organisations were included if they:
- reported R&D in the previous survey;
- were identified as likely to have R&D activity from other sources such as newspapers, journals, research compendia etc.; or
- indicated that R&D activity had been performed in the reference year via a coverage questionnaire.
9 For the 2004-05 survey, all Government and Private non-profit organisations which responded to the 2002-03 survey were reviewed to ensure they were collected in the correct sector, as determined by their SISCA classification. This resulted in the transfer of some organisations between the Government and Private and Non-profit sectors, and the Business sector. The movement of organisations between sectors has impacted on comparability of data with previously published estimates.
Government sector
10 The general government sector comprises all government units of the Commonwealth Government, state and territory governments and each local government authority, and all resident non-market Non-profit Institutes (NPIs) that are controlled and mainly financed by those governments.
11 The ABS R&D survey of the Government sector excludes local government organisations as they are considered to have low R&D activity. Additionally, higher education organisations (e.g. universities) are also excluded as they are collected separately in the Higher education sector.
12 Government entities mainly engaged in market production or financial activities are not classified as government units. These organisations are included in the Business sector.
Private non-profit sector
13 The Private non-profit sector comprises all resident non-market NPIs that are not controlled and not mainly financed by government. Such NPIs provide goods and services to households free or at prices that are not economically significant.
14 Private non-profit organisations mainly serving business are included in the Business sector.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC OBJECTIVE (SEO) AND RESEARCH FIELDS, COURSES AND DISCIPLINES (RFCD) CLASSIFICATIONS
15 Statistics classified by SEO and RFCD have been collected and presented in this publication. Data were subjectively allocated by organisations 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).
SOURCE OF FUNDS
16 The R&D performed by an organisation may be funded by more than one source. For example, funding provided to an organisation via an unincorporated Collaborative Research Centre may originally be sourced from the Government, Higher education and Business sectors. Prior to 2004-05, multi-source funding was classified in the R&D Government and Private Non-profit survey to 'Other Australian' sources of funds. For the 2004-05 survey, where possible this type of funding was reported separately against each of the original sources. An exception to this treatment being levies, which continued to be treated as Joint government/business funds. As a consequence of this change, the amount of funding attributed to Other Australian sources was significantly lower in 2004-05 than in previous cycles.
BIO-INDUSTRY SECTOR
17 The bio-industry sector classification is an unregistered classification assembled by the ABS in conjunction with government and industry groups. This classification was established specifically for the biotechnology portion of the R&D surveys, to enable areas within the biotechnology sector to be classified at a finer level.
CHAIN VOLUME MEASURES (CVM)
18 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 multi-stage 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
19 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 2004, Research and Experimental Development, All Sector Summary, Australia, 2002-03, cat. no. 8112.0, ABS, Canberra
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006, Research and Experimental Development, Businesses, Australia, 2004-05, cat. no. 8104.0, 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 2004, Main Science and Technology Indicators 2006/1, OECD, Paris
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2003, Proposed Standard Practice for Surveys on Research and Experimental Development ('Frascati Manual' 2002), OECD, Paris
20 Current publications and other products released by the ABS are listed in the Catalogue of Publications and Products (cat. no. 1101.0). The catalogue is available from any ABS office or the ABS web site <https://www.abs.gov.au>. The ABS also issues a daily Release Advice on the web site which details products to be released in the week ahead.
ABS DATA AVAILABLE ON REQUEST
21 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
22 Where figures have been rounded, discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.
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