Definitions of R & D : report with evidence.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
Date:
1990
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Definitions of R & D : report with evidence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    139/148 (page 137)
    Question6 Whatare the specific inadequacies of the Frascati definitions, and how might they be amended? For example, the OECD is considering supplementing the ‘basic’ and ‘applied’ research categories with a ‘strategic’ research category. The United States Department of Defence sub-divides ‘experimental development’ into ‘exploratory’, ‘advanced’ and ‘engineering’ development ( Annex 2). Would there be any advantage in using these, or other, categories to classify your department’s R & D spending? Answer 6 Because of the continuum of research, subjective decisions on categorisation will always be necessary at the margins. The Frascati categorisation as refined by DTI already sub-divides “applied” work into “Applied — strategic” and ‘“‘applied — specific.”” There could be some merit in having a category for “stategic’”’ research in place of the “‘applied — strategic’’ category, but it would be very difficult to achieve a consistent separation between “strategic” and “applied — strategic’ if both categories were adopted. Refinement of categories would still leave the problem of classifying consistently between adjacent categories and in addition requires even more detailed knowledge of the research programmes underway if they are to be categorised meaningfully. There is a distinct danger that such refinement will give the impression of a deeper and more precise analysis of the research programme than is justified by its determination in practise. Naturally, the SO Departments with smaller budgets for R&D tend to bne against any such further disaggregation. The AR already absorbs a considerable proportion of time for them with no tangible payback — indeed the effort put into the AR must detract from the total R&D actually being done (or supervised). Question 7 Would you give specific examples of the work funded by your department in 1986-87 which was recorded under each of the headings in Table 1.22 of the 1988 ‘Annual Review of Government Funded R&D’, ie: 1. basic; 2. applied — strategic; 3. applied — specific; 4. experimental development. Answer 7 1. Basic Agriculture:— 1.1 Elucidation of the acute autocrine control of milk secretion. 1.2 Construction of detailed genetic linkage maps using molecular and isozyme markers. 2. Applied strategic Agriculture:— 2.1 Characterising the spatial and temporal variation in soil and environmental properties by geostatistical methods. 2.2 Maintaining and evaluating the Commonwealth Potato Collection. Fisheries:— 2.3 An example is the research being done on biological interactions in the sea. The aim is to determine the physical, chemical and biological interactions of marine phytoplankton and the zooplankton which provide the food supply for higher organisms such as fish and marine mammals. Particular attention is given to stages in the foodchain which are sensitive to natural or man-made environmental changes eg pollution, and to the mechanisms leading to the occurence of plankton blooms which can pose a threat to fish farmers. (Other SO Departments had no entries in this category). 3. Applied specific Agriculture:— 3.1 Test and model hill sheep production systems. 3.2 Identify methods of overcoming adventitious bursitis of the hock in growing pigs. Fisheries:— 3.3 Work on the diagnosis, pathology and control of infectious diseases in farmed fish. The Department has responsibilities under the Diseases of Fish Acts for the investigation and control of disease outbreaks on fish farms. The research programme is undertaken to improve the diagnostic methods available to Departmental scientists, to develop better strategies for the control of important diseases such as furunculosis, and including the investigation of risks to wild fish stocks in the event of escapes of infected farm fish. 3.4 Work on how fishing gears select the fish which are caught as opposed to those which escape. The purpose of the mesh size regulations is to ensure that the small fish escape so that they can