Agency for statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Business Statistics Sector – Department for Industry and Construction Statistics

Zelenih beretki 26, 71 000 - Sarajevo

Statistics on Government Budget Allocations for R&D (GBARD) measure government support to research and development (R&D) activities, and thereby provide information about the priority governments give to different public R&D funding activities. This type of funder-based approach for reporting R&D involves identifying all the budget items that may support R&D activities and measuring or estimating their R&D content.

Main concepts and definitions used for the production of R&D statistics are given by the OECD (2015), Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development, The Measurement of Scientific, Technological and Innovation Activities (FM 2015, Chapter 12), which is the internationally recognised standard methodology for collecting R&D statistics and by Eurostat’s European Business Statistics Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics (EBS Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics).

Since the beginning of 2021, the collection of R&D statistics is based on Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020.

The Regulation sets the framework for the collection of R&D statistics and specifies the main variables of interest and their breakdowns at predefined level of detail (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (europa.eu)).

Statistics on science, technology and innovation were collected until the end of 2020 based on Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2012/995 concerning the production and development of Community statistics on science and technology.

Distribution by socioeconomic objectives (SEO) is based on the Nomenclature for the Analysis and Comparisons of Scientific Programmes and Budgets (NABS) at one digit level.

See below.

GBARD statistics are assumed to report detailed data on all the government's budget items that may support R&D activities and to measure or estimate their R&D content. For the purposes of GBARD, the Government sector comprises (a) the central (federal) government, (b) regional (state) government and (c) local (municipal) government subsectors (FM2015, Chapter 12).

Not requested.

The statistical survey entitled Research and Development covers legal units on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina that are known or assumed to be engaged in the R&D activity.

The reporting units observed are all direct users of the budget of Bosnia and Herzegovina; the budget of the Federation of BiH and cantons; the budget of the Republic Srpska; and the budget of the Brčko District.

According to the Classification of Activities (KD BiH 2010) e.i. NACE Rev.2. the section O – Public administration and defense, compulsory social security.

See below.

The target population is the population for which inferences are made. The frame (or frames, as sometimes several frames are used) is a device that permits access to population units. The frame population is the set of population units, which can be accessed through the frame and the survey data really refer to this population.

Not requested.

Not requested. See point 5.

Not requested. The base year for the unit Purchasing Power Standard (PPS) and PPS per inhabitant at constant prices is currently 2005. All calculations of non-basic unit (national currencies) are done by Eurostat.

Not requested.

a) Calendar year: 2021 - 2022

b) Fiscal year: 2021

    Start month: 01/01/2021

    End month: 31/12/2021

See below.

Since the beginning of 2021, GBARD statistics are based on Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics. The Regulation sets the framework for the collection of R&D statistics and specifies the main variables of interest and their breakdowns at predefined level of detail.  GBARD statistics were based until the end of 2020 on the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2012/995 concerning the production and development of Community statistics on science and technology.

There is no specific statistical legislation for R&D in Bosnia and Herzegovina. To conduct R&D surveys for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Law on Statistics of BiH No. 26/04 and 42/04 has been used.

• Law on Statistics of BiH (Official Gazette of BiH No. 26/04 and 42/04), as well as laws on statistics of the entity's statistical institutions. The Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina is responsible for data collection, data processing and data publishing at the state level (BiH level) as well as for the implementation of methodologies in all three statistical institutions in BiH in a unique way;
• Annual Work Plan of the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina 
• Multi-annual statistical work programs for BiH (2021 – 2024) and Annual work plans of BiH;
• Strategy for development of statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2030.

-          Frascati Manual 2015, Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development

-          EBS Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics

Not requested.

Confidentiality, being one of the process quality components, concerns the privacy of data providers (households, enterprises, administrations and other respondents), the confidentiality of the information they provide and the extent of its use for statistical purposes.

A property of data indicating the extent to which their unauthorized disclosure could be prejudicial or harmful to the interest of the source or other relevant parties.

a)       Confidentiality protection required by law:

The Law on Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette BiH, 26/04 and 42/04) in Chapter XI – Confidentiality of statistical data (Articles 23-29) and Law on Personal Data Protection of Bosnia and Herzegovina ("Official Gazette of BiH", No. 32/01),  establishes the principle of confidentiality as one of the main principles. In performing its tasks determined by this Law, the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina acts in accordance with the Law on the Protection of Personal Data of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette of BiH, 32/01).

The Agency for Statistics of BIH distributes statistics in accordance with the statistical principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice, and in particular in accordance with the principle of statistical confidentiality.

b)       Confidentiality commitments of survey staff:

The Law on Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Official Gazette BiH, 26/04 and 42/04), Article 28 regulates the commitment of survey staff to confidentiality: "Persons who have access to confidential information in the course of their duties must comply with the provisions of this Law and after they cease to perform their functions"

In the process of statistical data collection, processing, analyses, and dissemination of statistical information, BHAS fully guarantees the confidentiality of the data submitted by respondents (enterprises, institutions, organizations and other statistical units).

The document " Rulebook on the Protection of Statistical Data in the Agency for Statistics of BiH" lists procedures for ensuring confidentiality during collection, processing and dissemination - including protocols for insuring access to the individual data, rules for the definition of confidential cells in the output tables and procedures for detection and prevention of subsequent disclosures, as well as and access to microdata for research purposes. Confidential data are not published.

The Release Calendar of statistical releases is published in advance for the whole year and contains detailed information on all releases planned for publication. In December each year, the Agency for Statistics of BiH publishes the Release Calendar with the exact date and time of publication of statistics for the next year on the website, in 4 language versions (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian and English) The Release Calendar is also available in .pdf format. R&D press release is published T + 12 months after the final reference period. The release calendar for Statistical Press Releases in BiH is available on the following link: http://bhas.gov.ba/Calendar/?lang=en

The release calendar for Statistical Press Releases in BiH is available on the following link: http://bhas.gov.ba/Calendar/?lang=en

All releases are published following the defined Release Calendar on a specific day, at 11 am on the BHAS’s website. In case if there are delays with publishing a release, a notice is posted on the website and a new publication date/time is set. All releases are available in 4 language versions, namely 3 local languages and the English version. Users do not have access to the new data before their official publication on the BHAS's website, nor can they gain access to the data earlier. The principle that all users have equal access to statistical data on an impartial basis is established in Article 8 (2) h), and Article 19 (2) of the Law on Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it is consistently implemented in practice.

GBARD data in BiH is disseminated on an annual basis.

See below.

1) Y - Yes, N – No

See below.

1) Y – Yes, N - No 

Not applicable

Not requested.

See below.

See below.

Not requested.

1) Y – Yes, N - No 

The definitions of the methodology are given in the Frascati Manual 2015. Also, methodological explanations are available at the end of each GBARD statistical release available on the BHAS's website: https://bhas.gov.ba/data/Publikacije/Saopstenja/2022/RDE_03_2021_Y2_1_BS.pdf

Not requested.

See below.

BHAS follows the recommendations on organization and quality management given in the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP) and implements the guidelines given in the European Statistical System Quality Assurance Framework (QAF). Moreover, regarding quality assurance, all the procedures that describe the quality policy in BHAS can be found in the document: Quality Management Policy and Mechanisms in BHAS: 

https://bhas.gov.ba/data/Dokumenti/Kvalitet/QM_Policy_and_Programme_BHAS.pdf

GBARD statistics involve identifying all the budget items that may support R&D activities and measuring or estimating their R&D content. Advantages of this approach include the ability to report significantly more timely government R&D funding totals since they are based on budgets and to link these totals to policy considerations through classification by socioeconomic objectives. The user satisfaction survey is undertaken to monitor the quality of our statistical data and services. Please note, that this survey contains only data on user’s satisfaction with STI data, and not specifically with GBARD. User satisfaction survey results are available on: https://bhas.gov.ba/data/Dokumenti/Kvalitet/AZK2020_BS.pdf

See below.

1)       Users' class codification

1- Institutions:
• European level: Commission (DGs, Secretariat General), Council, European Parliament, ECB, other European agencies etc.
• in Member States, at the national or regional level: Ministries of Economy or Finance, other ministries (for sectoral comparisons), National Statistical Institutes and other statistical agencies (norms, training, etc.), and
• International organisations: OECD, UN, IMF, ILO, etc.

2- Social actors: Employers’ associations, trade unions, lobbies, among others, at the European, national or regional level.

3- Media: International or regional media – specialized or for the general public – interested both in figures and analyses or comments. The media are the main channels of statistics to the general public.

4- Researchers and students (Researchers and students need statistics, analyses, ad hoc services, access to specific data.)

5- Enterprises or businesses (Either for their own market analysis, their marketing strategy (large enterprises) or because they offer consultancy services)

6- Other (User class defined for national purposes, different from the previous classes.)

To evaluate if users' needs have been satisfied, the best way is to use user satisfaction surveys.

See below.

N/A

Completeness is assessed via comparison of the data delivered against the requirements of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2020/1197.

1)  Criteria: Obligatory data (provisional budget and final budget). Only 'Very Good' = 100% and 'Very Poor' <100% apply.

2)  Criteria: Optional data (final budget). 'Very Good' = 100%; 'Good' = >75%;'Satisfactory' 50 to 75%%; 'Poor' 25 to 50%; 'Very Poor' 0 to 25%.

See below.

1) Availability of the data: N: No, data are not available, Y: Yes, data are available + start year.

2) Time of compilation: T is assumed to represent the end of reference period, x expresses the number of months after (positive) or before (negative) T when data is compiled

1) Availability of the data: N: No, data are not available, Y: Yes, data are available + start year.

2) Time of compilation: T is assumed to represent the end of reference period, x expresses the number of months after (positive) or before (negative) T when data is compiled

1) Stage: P - provisional, F - final. 

2) Availability of the data: No, data are not available, Y: Yes, data are available + start year.

3) Time of compilation: T is assumed to represent the end of reference period, x expresses the number of months after (positive) or before (negative) T when data is compiled

Accuracy in the statistical sense denotes the closeness of computations or estimates to the exact or true values. Statistics are not equal with the true values because of variability (the statistics change from implementation to implementation of the survey due to random effects) and bias (the average of the possible values of the statistics from implementation to implementation is not equal to the true value due to systematic effects).

Several types of statistical errors occur during the survey process. The following typology of errors has been adopted:

1. Sampling errors. These only affect sample surveys. They are due to the fact that only a subset of the population, usually randomly selected, is enumerated.

2. Non-sampling errors. Non-sampling errors affect sample surveys and complete enumerations alike and comprise:

a) Coverage errors,

b) Measurement errors,

c) Non response errors and

d) Processing errors.

Model assumption errors should be treated under the heading of the respective error they are trying to reduce.

1)  Ranking of the type(s) of errors that result in over/under-estimation, from the most important source of error (1) to the least important source of error (5) In the event that errors of a particular type do not exist, is used the sign ‘-‘.

2)  The perceived direction of the ‘overall’ error using the signs “+” for over estimation, “-” for under estimation and “+/-” when assumption of the direction of the error cannot be made for GBARD.

1) High level of coverage (At least all national or federal ministries and the ministries and agencies responsible for R&D funding at state or regional level). High rate of response (>90%) in data collection. All figures broken down by NABS.  

2) If at least one out of the three criteria described above would not be fully met.

3) In the event that the rate of response would be lower than 80% even by meeting the two remaining criteria.

4) In the event that the average rate of response would be lower than 70% and at least one of the two remaining criteria would not be met.

5) If all the three criteria described above are not met.

Not requested.

Not requested.

Non-sampling errors occur in all phases of a survey. They add to the sampling errors (if present) and contribute to decreasing overall accuracy. It is important to assess their relative weight in the total error and devote appropriate resources for their control and assessment.

Coverage errors are due to divergences between the target population and the frame population. The frame population is the set of target population members that has a chance to be selected into the survey sample. It is a listing of all items in the population from which the sample is drawn that contains contact details as well as sufficient information to perform stratification and sampling.

a)       Description/assessment of coverage errors:

Coverage errors are kept to a minimum: With statistical survey BI-IR collects data on the Government Budget appropriations or outlays according to the socio-economic objectives, including all grants to international R&D programmes or institutions abroad. The objective of the survey is to enable the monitoring of the state R&D policy through its financing of the R&D activities. As opposed to the research imposed to organisations engaged in R&D activities, this survey focuses on organizations that finance the R&D activity. Data are the result of statistical processing of annual reports collected from budgetary and extra-budgetary users of the Government Budget in the reporting year.

The statistical survey on the Government Budget appropriations or outlays for the R&D activity in the period from 2021 to 2022 covers budgetary and extra-budgetary users of the Government Budget in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is, all government bodies who in 2021 financed and in 2022 planned to finance the R&D activity. The data are based on the actual Government Budget appropriations or outlays for 2021 (money paid out during the year) and the adopted Government Budget for 2022 (amount before the rebalancing of the Budget).

b)      Measures taken to reduce their effect:

 Not applicable

Not applicable

Not requested.

Measurement errors occur during data collection and generate bias by recording values different than the true ones. The survey questionnaire used for data collection may have led to the recording of wrong values.

a)       Description/assessment of measurement errors:

 Based on the communication with the reporting units in the phase of reporting and control, it was determined that the main reasons for errors are:

- the person who fills in the questionnaire reads the instructions superficially or does not read them at all,

- the person filling in the questionnaire does not understand the instructions,

- the person who fills in the questionnaire does so superficially and does not fill in all the necessary information,

- the questionnaire is not always filled in by the same person,

- reporting units do not have adequate records on allocations for research and development.

b)      Measures taken to reduce their effect:

 When an error is noticed in the statistical survey, it cannot be corrected independently, the reporting unit is contacted. Also, the reporting unit is contacted if the data differ significantly from the data submitted in the previous year

Non response errors: occur when a survey failed to collect data on all survey variables from all the population units designated for data collection in a sample or complete enumeration.

a) Problems in obtaining data from targeted information providers:

These errors refer to the discrepancies between the data collected and their true value. They are due primarily to the variable performance of human beings and their lack of precise knowledge of the data requested.  Response error is another serious error, where reporting units do not keep records of their operations and do not have clear concepts of recording. Missing data is a special kind of error in the answer. In these cases, reporting units is contacted by e-mail or by phone to obtain the necessary information and clarifications. 

b) Measures taken to reduce their effect:

In case of non-response, written reminders are sent to the reporting units after the scheduled deadline, and the reporting unit is contacted by phone to obtain the necessary data. 

c) Effect of non-response errors on the produced statistics:

 The data are comparable with the data from previous years, but it is necessary to further investigate the quality of the data due to the improvement of several statistical production processes.

Not requested.

Not requested.

Between data collection and the beginning of statistical analysis, data must undergo a certain processing: coding, data entry, data editing, imputation, etc. Errors introduced at these stages are called processing errors. Data editing identifies inconsistencies or errors in the data.

a)       Data processing and editing processes:

 No processing errors were detected, all data is processed in standard Excel spreadsheets, with programmatically created formulas

b)      Description of errors:

 Not applicable

c)       Measures taken to reduce their effect:

Not applicable

Model assumption errors occur when the assumptions made for the estimation of parameters, models, the testing of statistical hypotheses, etc., are violated. As a result, the quality of the resulting statistics is affected (e.g. degrees of confidence might be inflated).

Description/assessment: 

Not applicable

Timeliness and punctuality refer to time and dates, but in a different manner: the timeliness of statistics reflects the length of time between their availability and the event or phenomenon they describe. Punctuality refers to the time lag between the release date of the data and the target date on which they should have been delivered, with reference to dates announced in the official release calendar.

Date of first release of national data: Not applicable

Date of first release of national data: 28th December 2022

Punctuality refers to the time lag between the release date of data and the target date on which they were scheduled for release as announced officially.

Punctuality of time schedule of data release = (Actual date of the data release) - (Scheduled date of the data release)

See below.

Not requested.

The following table lists a number of key survey concepts and conceptual issues; it gives reference to the Commission Regulation No 2020/1197, Frascati manual and the EBS Methodological Manual on R&D Statistics paragraphs with recommendations about these concepts / issues.

GBARD encompass all spending allocations met from sources of government revenue foreseen within the budget, such as taxation. Spending allocations by extra-budgetary government entities are within the scope only to the extent that their funds are allocated through the budgetary process (FM2015 §12.9). The following table lists a number of key methodological issues, which may affect the international comparability of national GBARD statistics.

See below.

See below.

1)       Breaks years are years for which data are not fully comparable to the previous period.

Not applicable

Not requested.

Not requested.

This part compares GBARD statistics from the provisional and final budget for the reference year.

Not applicable

The assessment of costs associated with a statistical product is a rather complicated task since there must exist a mechanism for appointing portions of shared costs (for instance shared IT resources and dissemination channels) and overheads (office space, utility bills etc). The assessment must become detailed and clear enough so that international comparisons among agencies of different structures are feasible. 

NOT AVAILABLE

1)       The shares of the figures given in the first column that are accounted for by payments to private firms or other Government agencies.

1)        T = the time required to provide the information, including time spent assembling information prior to completing a form or taking part in interview and the time taken up by any subsequent contacts after receipt of the questionnaire (‘Re-contact time’)

There is no official revision policy adopted by the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Not requested.

Not requested.

a)       Provisional data:

 Not applicable

b)      Final data:

Government institutions on different administrative levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina actively participate in implementing research policy and financing R&D from budget (ministries).

Adopted budget and budget after the rebalance.

c)       General University Funds (GUF):

Not applicable

See 12.3.3.

See below.

1) Time of data collection (T+x): T is assumed to represent the end of reference period. x expresses the number of months after (positive) or before (negative) T when data is collected.

GUF data are included in GBARD survey from 2019

All the obtained data were entered into an application in which logical controls were set for the entered data sums. No discrepancies were observed when entering data.

See below.

Not applicable

See below.

Not requested.

Not requested.