FW: Paper no. 28

[Garfield, Eugene]

Dear colleagues,
 
Happy New Year to all of you.
 
Paper No. 28 (Research and Development: How the "D" got into R&D) in the
series on the history and sociology of S&T statistics and indicators is now
available at: http://www.csiic.ca/PDF/Godin_28.pdf
<http://www.csiic.ca/PDF/Godin_28.pdf> .
 

Abstract

 

Research and development (R&D) is a central component of official
definitions of science. R&D includes more than just research, however. Over
two-thirds of R&D expenditures are actually devoted to development. When,
how and by whose decision did development come to be part of our definition
of research? What was the purpose of measuring R&D rather than research?

 

This paper traces the history of the concept R&D through seventy years of
work on taxonomies and statistics on research. It identifies three stages in
the construction of development as a category. First, development was only a
series or list of activities without a label, but identified for inclusion
in questionnaire responses. Second, development came to be identified as
such by way of creating a subcategory of research, alongside basic and
applied research. Third, development became a separate category, alongside
research. It gave us the acronym we now know and use: R&D. Although
development is a category of industrial origins, three factors contributed
to the inclusion of development in official definitions of research:
organizational, analytical, and political.

Benoît Godin 
Professeur - INRS 

Canadian Science and Innovation Indicators Consortium (CSIIC)/ 
Consortium canadien sur les indicateurs de science et d'innovation (CSIIC) 
www.csiic.ca 

Project on the History and Sociology of S&T Statistics 
http://www.csiic.ca/publications.html
<http://www.csiic.ca/publications.html> 

e-mail: benoit.godin at ucs.inrs.ca <mailto:benoit.godin at ucs.inrs.ca>  

 

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