ABS' Latest Analyses on Australian R&D. (August 6, 2010)

Data published this past May and July by the Australian Bureau of Statistics demonstrate that government expenditure on Research and Development (GovERD) measured in "person years of effort" has decreased by 7.5% in the past decade while university expenditure on R&D increased by 35% to $6,717 million.

However, the data also show a shift in emphasis in the higher education sector from basic research to applied research.  A decade ago, applied research made up 35% of R&D. Today it has increased 17% to a value of  41%, and basic research has decreased from 34% to 29% of R&D expenditure by universities, a 15% drop.

A note on Chain Volume: The decision by the ABS to replace all of the ABS's constant price estimates with chain volume measures was announced in March 1998 in Information Paper: Introduction of Chain Volume Measures in the Australian National Accounts (5248.0). That paper describes what chain volume measures are, their advantages and disadvantages with respect to constant price estimates, the advantages and disadvantages of different chain volume formulae, and the results of an empirical analysis.

The explanatory notes (n) in the figures, refer to the ABS files 8109.0 and 8111.0, links at the bottom of this page.

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Details of the ABS analyses are available at:

ABS • R&D GOVERNMENT AND PRIVA T E NON-PROFIT ORGAN ISATIONS • 8109.0 • 2008 – 09

ABS • RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT , HIGHER EDUCATION ORGANISATIONS • 8111.0 • 2008