Gross expenditure on research and development Scotland 2021

Data and Methodology

Changes to ONS Research & Development Statistics

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been leading a redevelopment project for Research and Development (R&D) statistics.  The methodology for the business sector R&D spend estimates and the source of the higher education sector R&D spend was changed for our GERD Scotland 2020 publication; estimates in this release have been compiled using those improved methodologies.

These methodological changes have been implemented for the 2018 period onwards, meaning that comparisons of estimates for total R&D performed in the UK, and R&D performed in the business and higher education sectors before 2018 are not possible.

Business sector R&D spend

The BERD estimates in this release have been produced using the latest methodology, which better accounts for small businesses. Further information on this was published by the ONS on 29 September 2022: Comparison of ONS business enterprise research and development statistics with HMRC research and development tax credit statistics - Office for National Statistics and 22 November 2022: Options for Transformation of Business Enterprise Research and Development Statistics - Office for National Statistics

Note that there is still uncertainty around the robustness of the new BERD estimates for Scotland. More work is underway to further improve how the BERD statistics are compiled in the future, including the development of new sampling methods.

Higher education sector R&D spend

The source of the Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) estimates is Transparent Approach to Costing (TrAC) data, collected by the Office for Students.

The ONS has estimated R&D expenditure in a small number of regions in place of the TRAC data. This approach was taken because a small number of universities were either unable to submit their TRAC returns on time for inclusion in the TRAC results, or the returns were still under review. The estimated values calculated by the ONS only represent a small proportion of the overall total for the higher education sector.

R&D spend as a share of GDP

The GDP series have not yet been adjusted to incorporate the recent improvements to the measurement of R&D.  This should be borne in mind when considering the R&D spend as a share of GDP estimates in this release. It is also important to note that GDP was particularly low in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.