Australian Bureau of Statistics Releases R&D Expenditure Data Government and Private Not-for-Profit Organisations. (July 30, 2008)

The Executive Director of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), Bradley Smith, has worked up the following assessment of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on the financial support for Australian research and development by the federal and state governments and private non-profit organisations. The ABS have just released the R&D expenditure data for Government (GOVERD) and Private Not-for–profit organisations (PNPERD) for the 2006/7 year.

This is the 2^nd installment of the data series which is published every two years. Higher Education (HERD) data was released in June (when I was on leave) and business (BERD) will be out shortly. Final all-sector data will be available in August and I will prepare a full report when that is in.

The data records who performed the R&D not who funded it, thus ARC, NHMRC funded research is primarily found in Higher Ed (HERD) with small amount in BERD and PNPERD sector (ie medical research institutes) not in Commonwealth data. Accordingly, Government data primarily aggregates agencies such as CSIRO, ANSTO, DSTO, AIMS etc in Commonwealth and DPIs and some hospital based health research in State Govt data.

In summary, Government expenditure (GOVERD) increased modestly although its share of gross national expenditure on R&D (GERD) continues to decline relative to business and higher education. There has been a broadening of the research base with some arts, humanities and social sciences showing significant increases albeit off relatively low bases and research objectives continue to re-orient toward defence, health and the environment and away from industry development.

The key points of interest are:

Between 2004/5 and 2006/7:

• total Government expenditure on R&D increased by 19% from $2.486b to $2.954b (to give some perspective Higher Ed spend in 2006 was about $5.4b – up 25% - and total R&D spend in 2006/7 including industry will be around $17b - $18b).

• Commonwealth increased by 23% to $1.89b and State Govts by 13% to $1.06b. (a modest change northwards – between 1996/7 and 2004/5 total GOVERD in real terms was essentially flat with Commonwealth increasing slightly and State declining somewhat).

• Capital expenditure increased by 74% (C’wealth 69% and state 83%) however labour costs increased by only 8% (10% Cwealth, 3% state) - which is at best flat-lining in real terms.

• Basic research increased by 38%, strategic basic by 23%, applied by 19% and experimental development by 3%: the % share of each type of research are respectively: 4.6% (basic); 27.1%; 56.8%; and 11.6%.

• Disciplines varied: Mathematics increased by 12%; Physical sciences 30%; ICT 49%; Engineering 18%; Biological sciences 17%; medical & health 32%; cognitive and behavioural 43%; history 288%, the arts 276%; policy and political sciences 261% but economics, commerce, law and journalism all declined.

• There was also some ongoing re-orientation of R&D in socio-economic objectives: Economic development increased by only 10%, society increased by 31% with the major component of that – health – up 25%. Environment increased by 17% but state expenditure declined by 3% while commonwealth increased by 29%. Non-oriented research increased by 53% but off a really low base of about 3.5% of total spend. Interestingly, while economic development is still the major socio-economic objective of GOVERD its market share is in decline and has dropped from about 60% to 50% in the past decade despite the rhetoric of commercialisation.

•  Private-not-for-profit R&D increased by 26% with over 50% of that going to Victoria. 75% went to medical and health research with biological sciences receiving 16%.

(Please note all figures based on nominal or current year prices. That is 2004/5 expenditure has not been adjusted for CPI/inflation so in real terms % change is lower than these figures given CPI has been running at 3.5% - 4.0% in past couple of years.)