In 2007, officials at the National Science Foundation (NSF)
began an effort to revamp the way they delivered their annual report of expenditures
on R&D by U.S.-based companies. The change was brought about by a desire
for more information, especially with regard to global R&D performance.
Traditional surveys weren’t answering questions about whether, in consideration
of an economy that is becoming ever-more focused on service industries than
manufacturing, the U.S.
is staying competitive in global R&D.
With the help of the U.S. Census Bureau, which executed the
survey, NSF says it has conducted the first survey that has been designed to
take advantage of Internet-based reporting, and first to direct specific
questions to different departments within companies that participated in the
survey. This has allowed officials to more accurately track R&D activity by
U.S.-based companies doing research overseas, and to follow foreign companies
doing research in the U.S.
The pilot-scale study was begun in 2008, and the earliest
results are back: companies located in the United
States that have research and development activities—both
U.S.-owned businesses and U.S.
affiliates of foreign parents—reported worldwide sales of $11 trillion in
calendar year 2008 and worldwide R&D expenses of $330 billion. Most ($234
billion) of that R&D expense was for R&D conducted in companies’ own
facilities in the United
States.
The preliminary results of this survey are available here:
NSF Worldwide Industry R&D Report
Full results from this survey will be available in late 2010
or early 2011. The first official survey is now being conducted by the Census
Bureau and results from that survey will be available in early 2012, NSF
officials say.
Other interesting findings:
-The manufacturing sector still accounted for most R&D
activity, about 71%.
-Overall, companies with R&D activity reported that 68%
of their worldwide sales came from domestic business operations. This was particularly
true of scientific R&D service companies, which reported 85% of sales were
domestic.
-The amount of R&D by small businesses was relatively
higher than expected. Overall, small businesses (under 500 employees) invested
a greater percentage of their expenditures into R&D than larger companies.
They spent $64 billion globally (19% of total) on R&D and contributed $1
trillion (11% of total) to the total $11 trillion in sales.
The biggest surprise for NSF was how positive the numbers
look; not only in the amount of investment, but the amount of investment in the
U.S.
itself. Even when considering the amount of investment taken overseas by
U.S.-based companies—particularly in pharmaceuticals and medicine—the
difference is easily made up by foreign companies basing R&D operations in
the U.S.
A true global gauge of U.S. competitiveness is still not
available, however. Such a report, NSF officials say, would require the
cooperation of other agencies in the world. However, they say this report
represents a major step forward in the level of accuracy and complexity in
R&D reporting.
For a complete copy of the report go to: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/orderpub.jsp
or call (703) 292-PUBS (7827).
