[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 204 (Friday, October 21, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 65494-65495]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-27254]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request
The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of
information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44
U.S.C. chapter 35).
Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
Title: Business R&D and Innovation Survey.
Form Number(s): BRDI-1, BRDI-1A.
OMB Control Number: 0607-0912.
Type of Request: Revision of a currently approved collection.
Burden Hours: 130,855.
Number of Respondents: 43,000.
Average Hours per Response: 3 hours.
Needs and Uses: The National Science Foundation Act of 1950 as
amended authorizes and directs NSF ``* * * to provide a central
clearinghouse for the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data
on scientific and engineering resources and to provide a source of
information for policy formulation by other agencies of the Federal
government.'' The Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS) is the
vehicle with which NSF carries out the business portion of this
mandate. NSF together with the Census Bureau, the collecting and
compiling agent, analyze the data and publish the resulting statistics.
Companies are the major performers of research and development
(R&D) in the United States, accounting for over 70 percent of total
U.S. R&D outlays each year. A consistent business R&D information base
is essential to government officials formulating public policy,
industry personnel involved in corporate planning, and members of the
academic community conducting research. To develop policies designed to
promote and enhance science and technology, past trends and the present
status of R&D must be known and analyzed. Without comprehensive
business R&D statistics, it would be impossible to evaluate the health
of science and technology in the United States or to make comparisons
between the technological progress of our country and that of other
nations.
NSF has published annual R&D statistics collected from the Survey
of Industrial Research and Development (1953-2007) and BRDIS (2008-
2010) for more than 50 years. The results of the survey are used to
assess trends in R&D expenditures by industry sector, investigate
productivity determinants, formulate science and tax policy, and
compare individual company performance with industry averages. This
survey is the Nation's primary source for international comparative
statistics on business R&D spending.
The 2011 BRDIS will continue to collect the following types of
information:
R&D expense based on accounting standards.
Worldwide R&D of domestic companies.
Business segment detail.
R&D related capital expenditures.
Detailed data about the R&D workforce.
R&D strategy and data on the potential impact of R&D on
the market.
R&D directed to application areas of particular national
interest.
Data measuring innovation, intellectual property
protection activities and technology transfer.
The following changes will be made to the 2011 BRDIS from the 2010
BRDIS.
Section 7: R&D Time Frame and R&D Product Life will be
deleted. This section was only collected in 2010 at the request of the
Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The 2011 BRDIS will only have one short form (BRDI-1A).
The 2010 BRDIS included two versions of the short form to conduct a
test on the innovation data collection.
Starting in 2009, BRDIS decreased the number of long forms mailed
from approximately 5,000 to 3,000. This was done based on a study done
during the processing of the 2008 BRDIS pilot. The data showed that the
imputation rate on the key data variables would not be significantly
impacted by reducing the number of long forms for the details that are
only collected on the long forms. Also, R&D activity in the U.S. is
highly concentrated to a relatively small number of large firms so the
potential benefit in the reduction of burden was deemed to outweigh the
need to collect all of the detail from smaller R&D performing firms.
Policy officials from many Federal agencies rely on these
statistics for essential information. For example, total U.S. R&D
expenditures statistics have been used by the Bureau of Economic
Analysis (BEA) to update the System of National Accounts and, in fact,
the BEA recently has established a separate R&D satellite account in
the System. Accurate R&D data are needed to continue the development
and effect subsequent updates to this detailed satellite account. Also,
a data linking project has been designed to augment the Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) data collected by BEA. The initial attempt to link the
SIRD data with BEA's FDI benchmark files was successful, and plans now
call for the annual linkage of the R&D data to the Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) and U.S. Direct Investment Abroad (USDIA) data.
Further, the Census Bureau links data collected by the Survey with
other statistical files. At the Census Bureau, historical company-level
R&D data are linked to a file that contains information on the outputs
and inputs of companies' manufacturing plants. Researchers are able to
analyze the relationships between R&D funding and other economic
variables by using micro-level data.
Many individuals and organizations access the survey statistics via
the Internet and hundreds have asked to have their names placed on the
mailing list for a paper copy of the annual SRS InfoBrief that
announces the availability of statistics from each cycle of the Survey.
Information about the kinds of projects that rely on statistics from
the Survey is available from internal records of NSF's Division of
Science Resources Statistics (SRS). In addition, survey statistics are
regularly printed in trade publications and many researchers use the
survey statistics from these secondary sources without directly
contacting NSF or the Census Bureau.
Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations.
Frequency: Annually.
Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C., Sections 182, 224, and 225.
OMB Desk Officer: Brian Harris-Kojetin, (202) 395-7314.
Copies of the above information collection proposal can be obtained
by calling or writing Diana Hynek, Departmental Paperwork Clearance
Officer, (202) 482-0266, Department of Commerce, Room 6616, 14th and
Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet at
[email protected]).
[[Page 65495]]
Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice
to Brian Harris-Kojetin, OMB Desk Officer either by fax (202-395-7245)
or e-mail ([email protected]).
Dated: October 17, 2011.
Gwellnar Banks,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2011-27254 Filed 10-20-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P