Introduction: The Business Expenditure on Research and Development (BERD) Survey 2015 - 2016 is a survey of the research and development activities of enterprises in Ireland and other EU Member States.
The BERD Survey is carried out under Commission Regulation (EC) No 995/2012 implementing Decision No 1608/2003/EC. This is a statutory inquiry, collected under the S.I. No. 38/2018. The survey collects information about the research and development activities of enterprises across all business sectors of the economy. Most questions gather information on the spending and performance of research and development.
The BERD Survey is an On-Line Only Survey conducted by the CSO under Section 11 of the Statistics Act, 1993 to increase efficiency in the collection of statistical data and to reduce the burden on the participating enterprises. Data were collected in accordance with Section 33 of the Statistics Act, 1993 and with EU law and the survey was carried out under the agreed set of international rules as laid out in the OECD Frascati manual. Data are strictly confidential and will be used only for statistical purposes.
Survey: The BERD Survey is a targeted survey which is issued to all enterprises which are believed to be actively engaged in research and development across all business sectors of the economy. These enterprises were identified from various sources which included previous responses to the survey, other CSO data and other administrative sources.
Questionnaire: The BERD questionnaire is available from the CSO website.
Definition of Research and Development: Research and Development (R&D) is creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to create new or improved products, processes, services or other applications. R&D is distinguishable from other activities by the presence of an appreciable element of novelty and by the resolution of problems and uncertainties using scientific or technological means. Routine activities, such as routine software development, routine monitoring/analysis or preproduction preparation, where there is no appreciable novelty or problem resolution, are not considered to be R&D for the purpose of this survey.
Rounding of figures: Totals may not sum due to rounding.