Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > WHITE PAPER ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY2003 > Part2 2.4 2.4.2 2.4.2.1

  The Ministry of Public Management,Home Affairs,Posts and Telecommunications has been conducting surveys of business enterprises,non-profit institution,public organizations,and universities concerning science and technology indicators for R&D expenditure,the number of researchers,technology transfer,etc.,in Japan.This survey was originally started in1953as the Basic Statistical Survey of Research Institution,with the name changing in1960to the current Survey of Research&Development.Since that time,the coverage of survey has been expanded and new variables added several times,to reach its present focus.To reflect the increasingly important roles of software and services in industry and to improve the quality of international comparisons,the survey was subjected to an exhaustive review by the Statistics Council in FY2001,after which a new survey was launched in FY2002 with new survey categories and survey coverage.

The principal revisions are as follows:

Survey coverage categories were changed from three(companies,research institutions,and universities)to four(business enterprises,non-profit institutions,public organizations,and universities and colleges).

The following additions were made to survey coverage for types of industry:wholesale trade,finance and insurance industry(banks and trust businesses,securities businesses,and insurance businesses,etc.),services industries(information services and fact finding businesses,specialty service businesses,other business services,and academic research institutions).

Comprehension of the head count of researchrelated workers and their full-time equivalency(FTE)value(excluding universities)

Comprehension of the number of doctoral degree holding researchers

Comprehension of the state of research turnover(recruitment,number of transferees coming in and going out)

Alteration to the definition of a researcher(deletion of the requirement of having two or more years of research experience)

Comprehension of technological trade sums between parent/subsidiary companies