Gross expenditure on research and development Scotland 2021

Introduction

This annual publication presents information on research and development (R&D) undertaken by businesses, higher education, government and private non-profit sectors in Scotland in 2021, as well as revisions to published data for 2018, 2019 and 2020.  The majority of data in this publication are sourced from surveys conducted by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Further information about Scottish R&D activity and the full set of tables can be found at the Scottish Government's R&D statistics homepage.

Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) comprises R&D undertaken by the Business Enterprise (BERD), Higher Education (HERD), Government (GovERD) and Private Non-Profit (PNP) sectors.

Note that all values in this release are in current prices and have not been adjusted for inflation.

An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland

These statistics are designated as Official Statistics in accordance with the Statistics and Service Registration Act 2007. They have been produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Further information on Official Statistics is published by the UK Statistics Authority.

The methodology used to produce estimates of R&D performed in the business (BERD) and higher education (HERD) sectors was improved in our GERD Scotland 2020 publication; estimates in this release have been compiled using those improved methodologies. Note that there is still uncertainty around the robustness of the new BERD estimates for Scotland. And hence this publication is still classed as Official Statistics, with the National Statistics status still paused until the methodological work is complete.

This approach was introduced in our GERD Scotland 2020 publication, following the introduction of the new methodologies for measuring BERD and HERD. The GERD Scotland 2020 publication, published on 14 December 2022, includes information about the reduction in the available data breakdowns and the redesignation of estimates, from National Statistics to Official Statistics.