Survey of Industrial Research and Development

Survey of Industrial Research and Development
Name	Survey of Industrial Research and Development
Type	Statistical survey
Country	United States
Established	1953
Administered by	National Science Foundation
Frequency	Annual
Subject	Research and development expenditures

Contents

Survey of Industrial Research and Development is an annual statistical compilation measuring industrial research and development expenditures, staffing, and capital investments across sectors and regions. The survey is coordinated with agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the United States Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Office of Management and Budget, and private institutions like the RAND Corporation. It informs policy analyses conducted by entities including the Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office, the Brookings Institution, and industry groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute.

Overview and Purpose

The survey's principal purpose is to quantify firm-level and industry-level research and development outlays for stakeholders including the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and congressional committees such as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. It supports benchmarking used by academic centers at institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, and think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Data feed datasets maintained by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

The survey employs sample frames drawn from the North American Industry Classification System and integrates administrative records from the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Field operations coordinate with the United States Postal Service and the National Institutes of Health for respondent outreach; data processing uses standards from the International Organization for Standardization and the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures. Coverage spans manufacturing firms such as General Electric, Boeing, Pfizer, Intel, and ExxonMobil plus service-sector firms like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple Inc.. Confidentiality protection aligns with statutes administered by the Department of Justice and rules from the Federal Trade Commission.

Primary indicators include total R&D expenditures, intramural versus extramural shares, employment of researchers measured in full-time equivalents, capitalized R&D investment, and R&D intensity ratios relative to revenue and value added. These metrics are cross-tabulated by industry codes from the Standard Industrial Classification and by firm size categories used by the Small Business Administration and the Federal Reserve Board. Time-series alignments permit comparison with series published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for international benchmarking.

Survey results identify concentration of R&D activity in clusters such as Silicon Valley, Boston (Massachusetts), Research Triangle, Seattle, and Austin, Texas, and in industrial corridors involving firms like Tesla, Inc., Ford Motor Company, Toyota, Siemens, and Samsung. Sectoral breakdowns highlight heavy investment in pharmaceuticals represented by Merck & Co., Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis, in semiconductors represented by TSMC, NVIDIA, and AMD, and in aerospace represented by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Airbus. Regional comparisons draw on metropolitan statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and employment data coordinated with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Longitudinal series trace postwar expansion of industrial R&D from eras shaped by institutions such as the Atomic Energy Commission and policy milestones like the National Science Foundation Act of 1950 through technology shifts exemplified by the Microprocessor Revolution, the Internet Revolution, and the Biotechnology Revolution. Comparative analyses reference episodes including the Oil Crisis of 1973, the Dot-com bubble, the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic to explain accelerations or contractions in R&D outlays at firms like IBM, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, and Moderna.

Findings inform tax policy debates involving the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, incentives in the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit, and procurement priorities of agencies such as the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. They also shape regional innovation strategies pursued by state governments such as California, Massachusetts, Texas, New York (state), and North Carolina and influence corporate decisions by multinationals like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, BP, Shell, and Alibaba Group. Analysts at institutions such as the World Economic Forum, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Chamber of Commerce use the survey to assess competitiveness, resilience, and technology diffusion.

Category:Science policy Category:Research and development