The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Industrial Research
and Development Information System (IRIS) links an online
interface to a historical database with more than 2,500 statistical
tables containing all industrial research and development
(R&D) data published by NSF since 1953. These tables are
drawn from the results of NSF's annual Survey of Industrial
Research and Development, the primary source for national-level
data on U.S. industrial R&D.
The Survey of Industrial Research and Development Historical
Database is a collection of all of the statistics produced
and published from the 1953-1998 cycles of the annual Survey
of Industrial Research and Development. The database was developed
for use by the science, engineering, academic, industrial,
and policy making communities to build knowledge of the historical
trends in and inform current discussions about the levels
of industrial R&D. The survey provides national estimates
of the total expenditures on R&D performed within the
United States by industrial firms, whether U.S. or foreign
owned. It is a sample survey that intends to include or represent
all R&D-performing companies, either publicly or privately
held. Tabulations from the survey contain R&D statistics
by industry, size of company, source of funds, character of
R&D, R&D as a percentage of net sales, and R&D
contracted to outside organizations and performed outside
the United States. They also contain estimates of the sales
and total employment of R&D-performing companies, employment
of R&D scientists and engineers, and statistics by state.
The database contains the tabulations resulting from the
survey since its inception in 1953 through 1998. Before the
development of the database, tabulations from surveys prior
to 1991 were available only on paper because electronic versions
of the annual reports only exist for 1991 through the latest
cycle of the survey. These reports are available elsewhere
on the Division of Science Resources Studies web site at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/indus/start.htm.
The database contains statistics only through 1998. The reason
for this is NSF's industry R&D statistics for 1953-1998
were classified using the same industry coding scheme, the
Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. Beginning
with the statistics from the 1999 survey, a new coding scheme
is being used. Statistics for 1999 and later are classified
using the North American Industrial Classification System
(NAICS). (To give data users a bridge between the two coding
systems, several tables that reclassify SIC industries for
1997 and 1998 into the new NAICS industries are included in
Research and Development in Industry: 1999.)
The IRIS/Survey of Industrial Research and Development Historical
Database 1953-1998 system resembles a databank more than a
traditional database system. Rather than firm-specific microdata,
it contains the most comprehensive collection of historical
national industrial R&D statistics currently available.
The database contains over 2,500 tables in Excel spreadsheet
format that are easily accessible either by defining various
measures (e.g., total R&D) and dimensions (e.g., size
of company) of specific research topics or by querying the
report in which the tables were first published. The database
does not contain microdata because the Bureau of the Census,
NSF's collection and tabulation agent, conducts the survey
under Title 13 of the United States Code, which prohibits
publication or release of data or statistics that may reveal
information about individual respondents. Consequently, as
in many of the tables published on paper and on the web, some
estimates in the database spreadsheets have been withheld
to avoid possible disclosure of information about operations
of individual companies. Also, the system houses already-prepared
spreadsheets that track about two dozen major survey items
from the first to the last years they were part of the survey.
Again, the system is designed to make these longitudinal tables
available via the user-friendly IRIS system.
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