Research and development
Statistical activity code: 21701
Research and development (R&D) personnel as number of persons and in full-time equivalents by occupation category, sex, level of education, age, field of research and institutional sector Foreign researchers in non-profit institutional sectors R&D expenditure of institutions by type of expenditure, source of financing, type of R&D, field of research, socio-economic objective and institutional sector R&D expenditure in the business enterprise sector by type of expenditure, source of financing, type of R&D, economic activity and size class | |
Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK 2008) based on NACE Rev. 2 Classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK) International Standard Codes for the Representation of the Names of Countries (ISO 3166) The classification of socio-economic objectives is based on 2007 version of the “Nomenclature for the Analysis and Comparison of Scientific Programmes and Budgets” (NABS 2007). | |
All business activities excluding households and extra-territorial units regardless of the number of employed persons | |
Basic research – theoretical or experimental studies undertaken to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and events, without the aim of immediate application of this knowledge. Business enterprise sector — all enterprises, organisations and institutions whose primary activity is the market production of goods or services (other than higher education) for sale at an economically significant price; the sector includes also private non-profit institutions mainly serving them. Experimental development – systematic work drawing on existing knowledge gained from basic or applied research in order to develop new or substantially improved materials, products, devices, processes, systems and services. Full-time equivalent (FTE) – working time spent on research and development by research and development personnel in person-years. Government sector — all departments and offices financed by the state or municipalities whose primary activity is not the market production of goods and services and which do not belong to the higher education sector; the sector includes also private non-profit institutions mainly financed by government. Higher education sector — all universities, and other educational institutions providing higher education and all institutions under their direct control or associated with them (research institutes, clinics, scientific centres), whatever their source of finance or legal status. Private non-profit sector — non-profit associations, societies, foundations and their scientific units (excluding those mainly financed by government or serving enterprises). The term non-profit sectors is used for the three sectors — higher education sector, government sector and private non-profit sector — in order to distinguish them from the business enterprise sector. Research and development personnel – researchers and engineers, technicians and supporting staff who spend at least 10% of their working time on research and development activities. Research and development (R&D) – creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge about humans, culture and society, and the application of this knowledge. Researchers and engineers – all professionals with an academic degree or higher education diploma engaged in basic or applied research or experimental development to create new knowledge, products, processes, methods and systems. Sources of funds: - government — basic or special financing from the government as well as from municipal budgets, funds received from foundations financed by the government (incl. grants), own funds of institutions of the government sector (from the sale of products or services, leasing of rooms, etc.); - business enterprise sector — enterprise’s own funds, payments received from other enterprises for services or on contract basis, etc.; - private non-profit sector — payments received from private non-profit institutions for services or on contract basis, etc.; own funds of private non-profit institutions; - universities and higher schools — payments received from universities and higher schools and from scientific institutions associated with them for services or on contract basis, etc.; own funds of universities and higher schools; - foreign capital — funds received from international foundations or on the basis of international agreements, payments received from abroad for services or on contract basis. Support from European Union, international organisation, foreign state or foreign non-governmental organisation mediated through governmental budget are classified as government not foreign funds. Supporting staff – manual workers, secretarial and clerical staff participating in research and development projects or directly associated with such projects. Technicians – persons with vocational or technical education engaged in research and development activities and performing tasks under the supervision of researchers or engineers. Equal to technicians are persons who perform their research and development tasks under the supervision of researchers and engineers in the field of social sciences and humanities. | |
Economic unit | |
Research institutions, universities, higher education institutions and other public sector institutions (museums, archives, nature preserves, clinics) and non-profit associations and foundations engaged in R&D. Companies engaged in or potentially engaged in R&D FRAME List of institutions, non-profit associations and companies that are engaged in or are potentially engaged in research and development (R&D). The list is generated from the Business Register for Statistical Purposes List of licensed universities and higher education institutions compiled by the Ministry of Education and Research Register of institutions engaged in R&D maintained by the Estonian Research Portal Grant list of the Estonian Research Council List of entities who have received R&D support, compiled by the Environmental Investment Centre and Enterprise Estonia Enterprises who have reported R&D activities since 2016 (as part of various statistical activities) Enterprises with knowledge-intensive business activities that were born in the previous year | |
Estonia as a whole | |
1992–… | |
Not applicable |
DIRECTLY APPLICABLE LEGAL ACTS Decision No 1608/2003/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 July 2003 concerning the production and development of Community statistics on science and technology (Text with EEA relevance) Commission Regulation (EC) No 753/2004 of 22 April 2004 implementing Decision No 1608/2003/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards statistics on science and technology Commission Regulation (EC) No 995/2001 of 22 May 2001 implementing Regulation (EC) No 2516/2000 of the European Parliament and of the Council modifying the common principles of the European system of national and regional accounts in the Community (ESA 95) as concerns taxes and social contributions OTHER LEGAL ACTS Regulation (EC) No 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (Text with EEA relevance) OTHER AGREEMENTS Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) |
The dissemination of data collected for the production of official statistics is based on the requirements laid down in §§ 34 and 35 of the Official Statistics Act. The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here. | |
The treatment of confidential data is regulated by the Procedure for Protection of Data Collected and Processed by Statistics Estonia (in Estonian). See more details on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section Õigusaktid. |
Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month). | |
All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8:00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar. |
The news can be viewed on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section News. | |
Not published | |
Data are published in the statistical database at https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat under the subject areas “Economy / Science. Technology. Innovation / Research and development activities / R&D in business enterprise sector”, “Economy / Science. Technology. Innovation / Research and development activities / R&D in non-profit institutional sectors” and “Economy / Science. Technology. Innovation / Research and development activities / General data” in all tables. | |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes. | |
Data serve as input for statistical activities 21303 “Government finance” and 50201 “Sustainable development indicators”. | |
Frascati Manual. Proposed Standard Practice for Surveys on Research and Experimental Development, OECD (2015) https://www.oecd.org/publications/frascati-manual-2015-9789264239012-en.htm | |
Synthesis of National Quality Reports for R&D and GBAORD statistics: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/rd_esms.htm A quality report is sent to Eurostat for each survey period of research and development activities. |
To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act. | |
Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions. |
Ministry of Education and Research Government of the Republic Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications | |
Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys. | |
In compliance with the rules (regulations) |
The accuracy of source data is monitored by assessing the methodological soundness of data sources and the adherence to the methodological recommendations. The type of survey and the data collection methods ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness. | |
Not applicable | |
Statistics Estonia and the NSIs try to reduce non-sampling errors through continuous methodological and survey process improvements. |
The data are comparable with countries which collect data based on the common OECD methodology, which is also used by Eurostat. | |
Data on institutions are comparable since 1994. Data on companies are comparable since 1998 (data by economic activity are comparable since 2007). | |
The data of R&D expenditure of companies have in even years been duplicated with data collected by innovation survey. The coherence issues arise from the fact that the questionnaires are filled in by different persons in a company. | |
Research and development data for higher education, government and non-profit private sector are coherent, because common methods, concepts and definitions are used. |
The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics of the website of Statistics Estonia. | |
The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available. |
SURVEY DATA The population is 2,200 objects and all objects are observed. The population includes research and educational institutions and non-profit associations engaged in research and development (R&D), enterprises with R&D as the main economic activity or receiving support for R&D, high-technology or biotechnology enterprises or enterprises that have shown R&D expenditure in statistical reports during the last years or if information about their R&D activities has been received from other sources, new enterprises with knowledge-intensive economic activities. ADMINISTRATIVE DATA Not used DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES Not used | |
Annual | |
Data are collected and the submission of questionnaires is monitored through eSTAT (the web channel for electronic data submission). The questionnaires have been designed for independent completion in eSTAT and include instructions and controls. The questionnaires and information about data submission are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section Questionnaires. Data are collected with the annual statistical questionnaires “Research and development (R&D)” and “Research and development (R&D) (in companies)”. The frame of the survey for business enterprise sector is based on the list of R&D performing enterprises whose R&D activities are detected in the financial statistics survey. The list is continuously updated with the enterprises receiving financing from the Estonian Research Council and Enterprise Estonia (EAS), the enterprises showing R&D expenditure in their yearly report and with the information from other sources. The frame of the survey for non-profit sectors consists of registered research institutions, universities and higher schools, associations and foundations whose activities include R&D. The list is continuously updated with information on units performing R&D from Estonian Research Council, Environmental Investment Centre, EAS and other sources. | |
Arithmetic and qualitative controls are used in the validation process, including comparison with other data. Before data dissemination the internal coherence of the data is checked. In determining the population and checking the received data, the data of foundations providing research support (Enterprise Estonia – EAS, Environmental Investment Centre – EIC, Estonian Reseach Council – ETAG) are used. | |
Variables and statistical units which were not collected but which are necessary for producing output are calculated. New variables are calculated by applying arithmetic conversion to already existing variables. This may be done repeatedly; the derived variable may, in turn, be based on previously derived variables. | |
Not applicable |