Introduction: The Business Expenditure on Research and Development (BERD) Survey 2021-2022 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 (EU) 2019/2152. 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 online 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 was 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 is 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 can be accessed 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 pre-production preparation, where there is no appreciable novelty or problem resolution, are not considered to be R&D for the purpose of this survey.
Regional data: The BERD regional data has been produced in accordance with the latest NUTS classifications. See Information Note for further details.
NACE classification: Data is published for two NACE types: Services and Manufacturing.
For the purposes of this survey it should be noted that spending in the Services sector includes the spend from all other non-Manufacturing sectors. The value of this contribution to the Services sector total is not significant.
Rounding of figures: Totals may not sum due to rounding.